42 



cultivated one ; you are pointed to Lord John Eussell's 

 turnips, and the Rackheath wheat. But does the practice 

 actually apply as well to New England as Old ] Is there 

 an offset to its benefits in later crops and more exposure to 

 frost 1 AVhat are its relations to under-drainage ] Docs it 

 relieve wet lands, or render them more hopelessly soaked 

 and spongy 1 Is it equally good for a dry, friable soil on a 

 sand-hill, as I have seen to be true in one case, or is it any 

 better than the common deep ploughing as they practise it 

 in Surrey and some parts of Yorkshire? Now what I 

 affirm is, that each of these queries ought to have one, 

 definite, indisputable, experimental answer, recorded where 

 it can be got at ; an answer put beyond the region of con- 

 jecture, and rooted in authenticated facts. 



Again, of the application of lime, the preconceptions of 

 chemical theory would seem to promise that it belongs only 

 to non-calcareous soils ; yet does not experience show 

 instances where a calcareous soil has been specially fer- 

 tilized by carbonate of lime ? And if so, what are the con- 

 ditions that generate the anomalous result ? 



Again, within two months, I have seen in a single number 

 of a popular agricultural periodical, two communications, 

 both in a very positive tone, taking precisely opposite 

 grounds on the question whether, in salting hay, the salt 

 may be thrown on the top of the mow and left to inter- 

 penetrate the mass, or must be cast into each separate 

 forkful, or layer, as the hay is pitched from the cart. 



Again, the Deerfield farmers, in this State, close by the 

 celebrated residence of Henry Colman too, dispute one 

 another to this day as to the value of the " old tore " to a 

 grass crop, some of them insisting that it helps the next 

 yield, and others that it is better to keep the sward close. 



Or, once more, Avhat is the right law of producing fer- 

 tilizing agents 1 Must we continue the old fashion of 



