272 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS IN SOILING, 



AVERAGE PRODUCE OF WHEAT IN OfflO— HOW MUCH WHEAT PER ACRE WILL PAY. 



When to soil milch cows — and when not — is 

 a problem to be solved by a consideration of 

 circumstances which can only be duly taken in- 

 to account by every man for himself— for he only 

 can know the quantity and kinds of food he will 

 have at command — the extent and nature of the 

 pasturage to be refen-ed to in making the com- 

 parison, the expense of labor, and other items 

 necessary to a safe eonclusion. The question m 

 itself is one of so much practical importance, 

 that we shall occasionally present such views of 

 it as fall within our reach, leaving the intelligent 

 reader to decide how the circumstances tally 

 with his own. About one thing there can be no 

 mistake — that if we would stay the general pro- 

 gress of the country towards extreme exhaust- 

 ion — prompting landholders, even in compara- 

 tively new States, to sell out, and clear out ; we 

 must be more universally and deeply impressed 

 with the indispensable importance of evei"y year 

 collecting the greatest quantity of manure that 

 can from every source and by every means be 

 acciimtdated — for not a plant of tobacco or com 

 can be reared, not a stalk of grain can be reaped, 

 nor a spear of grass be cut, nor a potato dug, 

 that does not subtract something much beyond 

 what it can restore to the soil. Hence it is that 

 already the fine wheat lands of Westeni New- 

 York have been brought down, (for example, in 

 Seneca County,) on the undenied belief of the 

 most experienced and intelligent millers in 

 Rochester, to an average of only ten or eleven 

 [from twenty] bushels an acre — an amount of 

 which the most careless tenant or cultivator 

 in England would be ashamed, and one which 

 will not pay expenses of production in any slave- 

 holding country, where wheat is the principal 

 crop. We say in a slave-holding countiy, be- 

 cause there, there are many idle months not 

 employed in its cultivation. Wheat, or what 

 w^e call small grain crops, are those to the pro- 

 duction of which labor may and should be 

 exactly adapted — that is to say, there should be 

 no superfluous idle months, if avoidable, consu- 

 ming the substance of the farm and the farmer 

 in the long interval between sowing and reap- 

 ing. Growing wheat is a caae in which the ex- 

 pense of outlay and income may be calculated 

 willi more exactness than can be attained in ' 

 (572) 



most others, and we should much doubt whether, 

 in Maryland or Virginia, a wheat estate, espe- 

 cially one at any distance from tide water and a 

 market, can pay expenses where the yield is not 

 over ten bu.shels to the acre, and the net market 

 price notover$l, after charging say ^Aree^oercewi 

 on the value of the land, or what the owner 

 would ask for it, and deducting all expenses of 

 inanimate and animate power — kept all the year, 

 whether at work on the wheat or not — we should 

 be glad to have the views and figures of some 

 of our friends on this point. 



In a clear and intelligent circular of a distin- 

 guished house in New Orleans — Gordon, Wi- 

 ley & Co. — they state that the average product 

 of Ohio even, that comparatively new and fer- 

 tile State, is not over ten bushels of wheat to the 

 acre — and there, too, the land-killer, seeing the 

 prospect before him, is falling into and swelling 

 the stream of emigration as it passes his door, to 

 the Far West. 



The prominent advantages of soiling, our read- 

 ers need not be told, is that it may be practiced 

 on a smaller quantity of land than is necessary 

 under an exclusively grazing sjstem, and yet 

 more, that it contributes to the accumulation of 

 manure. And the young fanner must he blind 

 and infatuated, he must wilfullj' shut his eyes 

 against the ruin that is coming to overtake him, 

 as surely as the sparks fly upwards, if he does 

 not somehow contrive to restore, year by year, 

 to his land, as much of the elements necessary 

 to sustain his crops as these crops take and 

 carry away from it, whenever they are carried 

 to market for sale. The process of exhaustion 

 may be slower or faster, according to circum- 

 stances, but his land that is cropped can no more 

 re-fertilize and invigorate itself, than his pocket 

 can replenish itself with that money whicli has, 

 according to Scripture, made itself wings and 

 flown away. It is to be regretted that the com- 

 parative results of soiling and pasturage were 

 not more exactly given in the following, which 

 we find in that excellent Journal, the London 

 Agricultural Gazette. It is clear, however, that 

 the experimenter was satisfied with the result 

 of the soiling part of the experiment. The read- 

 er will note, without being prompted, tliat Mr. 

 Smith says — " About one-fourth part of the labor 



