1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



161 



of clover ploughed in. Aficr the wheat and rye, 

 the corn cotnes up dark, healiliy, and vijrorous ; 

 after the clover, yellow, sickly and unthrifiy, but 

 recovers. The succeeding crops afier the clover 

 are superior. In both instances the corn grows 

 from 7 to 10 feet high. The ears form well, but do 

 not ripen, making mosi excellent [stock] food. The 

 pigs steal the ears, whilst the t-teers and cows eat 

 the blades, (leaves.) Wheat, barley, &c. absorb 

 what is in their roots in ripening; clover, turnips, 

 &c. being not permitted to ripen, do not. Indian 

 corn, horse-beans, &c. cut partially ripe, are inter- 

 mediate between these two. If a field o( rye or 

 any other grain is harvested, and another plough- 

 ed in green, and both sowed with any other crop, 

 that crop will grow Ibr a considerable time much 

 better after the former than the latter. I do not 

 yet see the philosophy of this. Is the soil more 

 exhausted whilst the. rye is yet green, (always ad- 

 mitting that it returns more than it takes, after it 

 decays when ploughed in,) than after it is ripe 

 and all the roots gone? My ob;ervation would 

 lead rae to suppose that it is. All this puzzles 

 nrie. When a crop of grain is |)loughed in green, 

 the land turns up almost like an old sod, and full 

 of roois ; so much so that we can scarcely cover 

 the corn. Indian corn is universally grown in this 

 country, and so ought horse-beans to be in Eng- 

 land, in all soils that will grow them. The former 

 matchless crop you cannot grow unless you can 

 raise the temperature at midnight horn 70" to S4°; 

 I have known it 85°, and ielt it. Meal and turnips 

 are much superior for fattening cattle to either 

 alone. This practice, with green crops ploughed 

 in, as far as the climate will permit, would revo- 

 lutionize the face of the whole of this country. 



Is all this nonsense and quackery, or is it a 

 bomb-shell cast into the established system and 

 opinions? My views, I think, show the very im- 

 poverished condition of the soil whilst clover 

 is living, and its great fertility when decayed. 

 Wheat fails after clover in Scotland and the north 

 of England, and is by far the best after it in this 

 country. Diflerence of temperature will account 

 for this. For the "something is removed," read, 

 "the clover roots being decayed makes the wheat 

 successful." There is nothing removed but the 

 poverty, which is unfavorable to wheat. These 

 somethings, roofings, and tirings are poor guides 

 and explanations. There is much to be learned 

 and done yet in England as well as elsewhere, 

 and it needs no ghost to tell it, in this most difficult 

 and complex, most noble and godlike of all the 

 arts and sciences. The future condition of hot 

 climates is a darling dream of mine. All that has 

 yet been done (with the exception of this coun- 

 try,) and how transcendant in some instances! 

 was previous to the art of printing, or when it was 

 of little value. The day is not far off (and close 

 at hand, if free trade were established, so much 

 talked of every where, anJ practiced no where, or 

 likely to be so soon ; northern countries had better 

 keep trade as it is, as long as they can,) when hot 

 climates will as farexceed cold ones, (the minerals 

 alone of the United States would make a respec- 

 table island.) in proihictiveness and variety of i'ood, ' 

 comforts, luxuries, &c., and arts, sciences, and re- 

 finements, personal size, strength and beauty of 

 man and beast, as latitude 52'^ now exceeds in all 

 these latitudes 60^; and the face of nature will be 

 as much more intensely green too. But all this is 

 Vol. Vn~21 



as heterodox, visionary, and absurd here now, and 

 in "the last anchor'd isle," as republicanism was 

 60 years ago every where. In less than another 

 centur}', poor despised and neglected agriculture 

 and its professors will be at the top of the ladder ; 

 " they who are first shall be last, and they who 

 are last shall be first," if I read the glorious and 

 cheering signs of the times rightly. We are 

 thought'^little of here I assure you. What stronger 

 proof of this is required than the fact that our farm- 

 ers themselves think meanly of the first and most 

 important of all prolessions ? Please to put this on 

 record from a man who has seen, thought, and 

 read much, and who does not herd much with the 

 world as it now is. When a man advances any 

 thing new and startling, perhaps his readers have 

 a right to know something of his pretensions. I 

 give you some of mine. I was a pupil of the late 

 excellent Mr. Runciman, of Woburn, and of that 

 matchless man and farmer, Mr. Blomfield, of Nor- 

 folk. I resided a short time in the immediate 

 neighborhood of the late Mr. Rennie of Phantas- 

 sie."^ I was two years at Edinburgh College, and 

 one season at the Royal Institution in London. I 

 made an agricultural tour on foot over the greatest 

 part of Scotland, and some parts of England ; this 

 was no education for fitting a young man of anient 

 mind and feelings for the yoke of tithes, game- 

 laws, &c. But enough: I left relations, a few 

 friends, home, country, and property, and I am 

 content. 



P. S. I see in your publications, American plants 

 and bog-earth always coupled together. This 

 country is not a bog, nor any thing like one. Rho- 

 dodondrons, azaleas, &c. grow *in this neighbor- 

 hood on the dry steep declivities of gneiss and 

 hornblende rocks; and thousands of rhododen- 

 drons grow in the state of New Jersey, upon sands 

 as dry and barren as those of Brandon in Suffolk. 

 I am not accustomed to writing, as you will per- 

 ceive, and I fear my story is somewhat confused, 

 but of the truth of its principles I am well convinc- 

 ed from experience. They will bear study and in- 

 vestigation. 



Are air and wafer of any other use to vegeta- 

 tion than to ourselves ? Plants absorb and decom- 

 pose them ; so do we: |)oor diet alone, notwith- 

 standing. Does not vegetation derive all its food 

 from what exists in the soil, and is not vegetable 

 matter the beef and bread of vegetables ? Forthis 

 purpose weeds grow. JNIy experience says some- 

 thing for this doctrine. Nature, farms and manures 

 as well as man ; but he has got it into his head to 

 reject her assistance, and do things his own way. 



George II. Walker. 

 Longford, Holmesbitrg, near Philadelphia, lat. 40° 



December 24, 1830. 



[The writer of the foregoing article was a strong 

 and original thinker, and, as his contributions to 

 this journal have shown, excited interest in regard 

 to every thing which he touched in writing, even 

 when his meaning was very obscure, (as it often 

 was,) or when his propositions were most opposed 

 to the reader's opinions. But though the doc- 

 trine and practice here set forth were unquestion- 

 ably original with Mr. Walker, (for he was one 

 of the last men who would have assumed the merit 

 that belonged to aiioihcr.) it is nevertheless certain 



