26 CALCAREOUS MANURES -THEOUY. 



When it is assumed that the silence of every distinguished author as to 

 certain soils being incapable of being profitably enriched, amounts to igno- 

 rance of the fact, or a tacit denial of its truth— it may be objected that the 

 exception was not omitted from either of these causes, but because it was 

 established and undoubted. This is barely possible; but even if such were 

 the case, their silence has had all the ill 'consequences that could have grown 

 out of a positive denial of any exceptions to the propriety of manuring 

 poor soils. Every zealous young farmer, who draws most of his know- 

 ledge and opinions from books, adopts precisely the same idea of their di- 

 rections — and if he owns barren soils he probably tlirows away his labor 

 and manure for their improvement, for years, before experience compels 

 him to abandon his hopes, and acknowledge that his guides have led him 

 only to failure and loss. Such farmers as I allude to, by their enthusiasm 

 and spirit of enterprise, are capable of rendering the most important bene- 

 fits to agriculture. Whatever may be their impelling motives, the public 

 derives nearly all the benefit of their successful plans ; and their far more 

 numerous misdirected labors, and consequent disappointments, are produc- 

 tive of national, still more than individual loss. The occurrence of only a 

 few such mistakes, made by reading farmers, will serve to acquit me of 

 combating a shadow — and there are few of us who cannot recollect some 

 such examples. 



But if the foregoing objection has any weight in justifying European 

 authors in not naming this exception, it can have none for those of our own 

 country. If it is admitted that soils naturally poor are incapable of being 

 enriched with profit, that admission must cover three fourths of all the high- 

 land in the tide-water district. Surely no one will contend that so sweep- 

 ing an exception was silently understood by the author of ' Arator,' as 

 qualifying his exhortations to improve our lands : and if no such exception 

 were intended to be made, then will his directions for enriching soils and his 

 promises of reward be found equally fallacious, for the greater portion of 

 the country for the benefit of which his work was especially intended. The 

 omission of any such exception, by the winters of the United States, is the 

 more remarkable, as the land has been so recently brought under cultiva- 

 tion, that the original degree of fertility of almost every farm may be 

 kiiown to its owner, and compared with the after progress of exhaustion 

 or improvement. 



Many authorities might be adduced to prove that I have correctly stated 

 what is the fair and only inference to be drawn from agricultural books, 

 respecting the capacity of poor soils to receive improvement. But a few 

 of the most strongly marked passages in ' Arator' will be fully sufficient for 

 this purpose. The venerated author of that work was too well acquainted 

 with the writings of European agriculturists, to have mistaken their doc- 

 trines in this important particular. A large portion of his useful life was 

 devoted to the successful improvement of exhausted, but originally fertile 

 lands. His instructions for producing similar improvements are expressly 

 addressed to the cultivators of the eastern parts of Virginia and North Ca- 

 rolina, and are given as applicable to all our soils, without exception. Con- 

 sidering all these circumstances, the conclusions which are evidently and 

 unavoidably deduced from his work, may be fairly considered, not only as 

 supported by his own experience, but as concurring with the general doc- 

 trine of improving poor soils, maintained by previous writers. 



At page 54, third edition of ' Arator,' "mclosing'" (i. cleaving fields to 

 receive their own vegetable cover, for their improvement, during the years 

 of rest) is said to be " the most powerful means of fertilizing the earth" 

 — and the process is declared to be rapid, the returns near, and the gain 

 great. 



