S36 



THE GENESEE FARMER, 



" Ride fearless and promply, with your knees pressed 

 to the side of the horse, and your toes turned in and 

 heels out ; then you will always be on the alert for a 

 sliy or sheer from the horse, and he can never throw 

 you. 



"Then, if you want to teacli him to lie down, stand 

 on his nigh, or left side ; have a couple of leather straps, 

 about six feet long; string up his left leg with one oi 

 them round his neck; strap the other end of it over 

 his shoulders; hold it in j'our hand, and when you are 

 ready, tell him to lie down, at the same time, gently, 

 firmly and steadily pulling on the strap, touching him 

 lightly on the knee with a switch. The horse will 

 immediately lie down. Do this a few times, and you 

 can make him lie down without the straps. 



" He is now your pupil and friend. You can teach 

 him anything — onl}' be kind to him, be gentle. Love 

 him, and he will love you. P'eed him before you do 

 yourself. Shelter him well, groora him yourself; keep 

 him clean, and at night always give him a good bed, 

 at least a foot deep. 



" In the winter season, don't let your horse stand 

 out a long time in the cold, without shelter or cover- 

 ing; for remember that the horse is an aboriginal na- 

 tive of a warm climate, and, in many I'espccts, his 

 constitution is as tender as a man's." 



HOW NATUEH IMPAETS FEETILITY TO LAUD. 



EvKRY farmer who would master the science ol' 

 Agriculture, aud rise to the full height and dignity of 

 his noble calling, should diligently study the v/ays 

 and means employed by Natuure to impart fertility 

 to land, aud bring both its vegetable and animal 

 products to the highest perfection. He should learn, 

 if practicable, what elements, and in what conditions, 

 give rise to the great diversity of soils witnessed in 

 all countries. From a few very common and abundant 

 substances, like air, water and earth, Nature forms an 

 endless variety of plants and animals, and soils in every 

 respect adapted to the peculiar wants of each species. 

 The natural requirements of plants and animals, how- 

 ever, are mainly uniform and simple; so that less than 

 twenty elementary bodies, and ordinarily no more 

 than fourteen, enter into the composition of all or- 

 ganized beings, whether they belong to the vegetable 

 or animal kingdom. Indeed, judged by their cellular 

 structure and early growth, the vital germ in a seed, 

 and in an egg, appear to have no other difference 

 than the obvious luct that one is endowed with the 

 life of its plant parent, and the other with the life of 

 its animal parents; so that, as development proceeds, 

 from one may emerge an oak, and irom the other a 

 reptile or a bird. 



Viewed in their relations to plants, soils may be 

 said to grow as much as a forest tree, not in the same 

 way, nor does a child or a pig grow like a plant, yet 

 both grow, nevertheless, as does also the natural fruit- 

 fulness ot the land that supports them. If we in- 

 quire what substance most promotes the develop- 

 ment of all the organized and varied beings in the 

 world, water will be found fairly entitled to that dis- 

 tinction; for it not only constitutes, in its elements 

 oxygen and hydrogen, over forty per cent of their 

 solid.x, but it alone dissolves their aliment, and gives 

 that freedom of motion without which no seed could 

 possibly germinate, and no ovum produce its young. 

 Water being an universal solvent, is no less active 

 :;nd U3?ful in preparing land for the support of plants 

 and animals, than in preparing tho prirsary cells in 

 the genus of tha latter for aJi th^jir subseqaeat evo- 



lutions and parental functions. It is water that con- 

 veys carbonic, sulphuric, silicic and phosphoric acids, 

 unted with potash, soda, lime aud magnesia, from a 

 soil into the trunks of gigantic forest trees, to reniaia 

 there for centuries, until they dis and decay; it also 

 carries into the earth which surrounds their roots ii 

 full equivalent of the substances named. Hence,- 

 when an aged oak, poplar or walnut has largely drawn 

 on the soil for two or three hundred sumaiers for the 

 alkalies stored up in its roots, body aud numerous, 

 limbs, the ground is not exhausted, but, in the wise 

 economy of Nature, ths water that has come up- 

 from the earth belosv to supply the place of that 

 evaporated from its countless leaves, has brought 

 with it the elements of fertility annually consumed 

 by this long-lived aud gigantic plant. Sand, clay, 

 and rocks, which are pervious to water and air, never 

 refuse to yield some minerals needful in the growth 

 of both vegetables aud animals, when rain or snow- 

 water percolates through them. Water charged with 

 carbonic acid, derived partly from the atmosphere 

 and partly from passing through vegetable mould in 

 the soil, has a much greater solvent power over both 

 the carbonate and phosphate of lime, the silicate.* of 

 potash and soda, and other earthy salts, than pure 

 distilled water would have. The decay of annual 

 weeds, grasses and forest leaves, yields not only valu- 

 able organic acids, including carbon, but ammonm, 

 which, like potash and soda, according to Prof. Way, 

 renders silica soluble in water. 



All the food of plants being dissolved in water, 

 and that having the most perfect freedom of motion 

 between its particles, we have only to find adequate 

 physical causes for the general distribution of water 

 to account for the almost universal productiveness of 

 tlie earth. The daily evaporation that takes place 

 from oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, plants and the naked 

 earth, and the fall of water in rain, snow and dew, 

 are too well known to need any remarks in this con- 

 nection. They often give rise to an excess of water 

 in many soils, which need draining; for it is movm^ 

 water that feeds and enriches land, not that which i» 

 stagnant. 



To facilitate the ascent of water through a hard- 

 pan, or some imper\iou3 stratum, of more or less 

 .thickness, it should be perforated on the same prin- 

 ciple that Artesian wells are bored in Alabau)a, 

 France and other countries. Science teaches the art 

 and wisdom of fertilizing soils equally from the earth 

 below, and the air above. This is precisely what 

 Nature does in recuperating the old fields of the 

 Southern Atlantic States, without the assistance oi 

 man. With his aid, if skillfully rendered, the it?- 

 sources of partially impoverished land iuay be more 

 rapidly improved and augmented. lie must assist 

 Nature, not counteract her beneficent purposes. la 

 all hot climates, irrigation has been found, by the 

 experience of ages, most conducive to agricultural 

 production, especially \7here water is highly charged 

 with the elements of crops. Some rocks yield an ia-^ 

 culcalable amount of the earthy constituents of plants, 

 and thus fertilize not only the land in their immedi- 

 ate vicinity, but sometimes soils thousands of miles 

 distant from them. There are alkaline springs near 

 the summit of the Rocky Mountains, some that yield ,.^ 

 potash, others soda, in large quantities, more or les.'; 

 of which will be left in every rood of low land cov- 

 e.-^d by creeks and rivers as their waters Qow eaot- 

 eriy into the Gulf of Meixico, or westerly into the 



