46 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



to the taste; and their growth is favored by the soils which I suppose to 

 be acid, to an extent which would be thought remarlvable in other plants 

 on the richest soils. Except wild locust on the best river land, no growth 

 can compare in rapidity with pines on soils naturally poor, and even greatly 

 reduced by long cultivation. Pines usually stand so thick, on old exhaust- 

 ed fields, that the increase of size in each plant is greatly retarded ; but if 

 the whole growth of an acre were estimated, it would probably exceed in 

 quantity the different growth of the richest soils, of the same age and on 

 an equal space. Every cultivator of corn on poor light soil knows how 

 rapidly sorrel* will cover his otherwise naked field, unless kept in check by 

 continual tillage— and that to root it out, so as to prevent the like future 

 labor, cannot be effected by any mode of cultivation whatever. This weed 

 too is considered far more hurtful to growing crops, than any other of equal 

 size. Yet neither of these acid plants can thrive on the best lands. Sorrel 

 cannot even live on a calcareous soil ; and if a pine is sometimes found 

 there, it has nothing of its usual elegant form, but seems as stunted and ill- 

 shaped as if it had always suffered for want of nourishment. Innume- 

 rable facts, of which these are examples, prove that these acid plants must 

 derive from their favorite soil some kind of food peculiarly suited to their 

 growth, and quite useless, if not hurtful, to cultivated crops. 



2nd. Dead acid plants are the most effectual in promoting the growth of 

 living ones. When pine leaves are applied to a soil, whatever acid they 

 contain is of course given to that soil, for such time as circumstances per- 

 mit it to retain its form, or peculiar properties. Such an application is often 

 made on a large scale, by cutting down the second growth of pines, on 

 land once under tillage, and suffering them to lie a year before cleaning 

 and cultivating the land. The invariable consequence of this course is a 

 growth of sorrel, for one or two years, so abundant and so injurious to the 

 crops, as to more than balance any benefit derived by the soil from the 

 vegetable matter having been allowed to rot. From the general experience 

 of Ithis effect, most persons put pine land under tillage as soon as cut down, 

 after carefully burning (to destroy) the whole of the heavy cover of leaves, 

 both green and dry. Until within a few years, it was generally supposed 

 that the leaves of pine were worthless, if not hurtful, in all applications to 

 cultivated land— which opinion doubtless was founded on such facts as 

 have been just stated. But if they are used as litter for cattle, and heaped 

 to ferment, the injurious quality of pine leaves is destroyed, and they be- 

 come a valuable manure. This practice is but of recent origin— but is 

 highly approved, and rapidly extending. Still later it has been found that 

 when these leaves are applied unrotted, as raked up in wood-land, to calca- 

 reous land, they produce only and always beneficial results; and that this 

 is the best as well as cheapest mode of their application. 



On one of the washed and barren declivities (or galls) which are so nu- 

 merous on all our farms, I had the small gullies packed full of green pine 

 bushes, and then covered with the earth drawn from the equally barren 

 intervening ridges, so as nearly to smooth the whole surface. The whole 

 piece had borne nothing previously except a few scattered tufts of poverty 

 grass, and dwarfish sorrel, all of which did not prevent the spot seeming 

 quite bare at mid-summer, if viewed at the distance of one hundred yards. 

 This operation was performed in February or March. The land was not 



♦ Sheep sorrel, or Rumex acelosa. The wood sorrel ( Oxalis acctocella) is of a very 

 different character. The latter prefers rich and even calcareous soils, and I have 

 seen it growing well on places calcareous to excess. It would seem, therefore, that 

 wood sorrel forms its acid from the atmosphere, and does not draw it from the soil, as 

 I suppose to be the case with common sorrel. 



