142 Agriculture of Kew York. [Sept., 



however, has extended the wheat-growing soil as far as the out- 

 cropping of the Hamihon and Chemung rocks in many phices. 

 The higher grounds, or the elevated parts of the district, covered 

 by the Hamilton and Chemung groups, have not received the de- 

 bris of the Onondaga salt group; they are furnished with soil 

 which is dei'ived principally from the groups themselves. It is 

 always deficient in the alkalies and alkaline earths. 



8. The iron in the wheat soils, and in the green shales, is in 

 the state of a protoxide: indeed this statement holds good when 

 api)lied to the Taconic slates. The soils, too, of the wheat dis- 

 trict, contain the protoxide principally; while in the maize-grow- 

 ing district, it is usually in a state of a peroxide. It is impioha- 

 ble that iron enters into the organs of vegetables without first 

 becoming a peroxide. 



9. There are no soils in New York, which are entitled to the 

 appellation of calcareous soils. In the common language of the 

 journalists of the day, they are either sandy or argillaceous loams. 

 The peaty soils belong mostly to swamps or marshes, or which 

 were so before they were reclaimed. 



10. The means which are usually at hand for maintaining an 

 uninterrupted fertility, are plaster, limestone, marl, tufa, peat, and 

 decomposable shales. The distribution of the limestones is well 

 delineated on the geological map. The peat and marl beds are 

 generally distributed over the entire state, but they occupy only 

 small basins in each of the geological formations. Lime is used 

 too seldom; though its influences and effects are invariably decid- 

 ed, when there is a sufficiency of vegetable or organic matter. 

 Hence one of the most important desiderata for the agricultuiist, 

 will be hereafter to secure a sufficient amount of organic matter, 

 which may be used most efficaciously in the form of compost with 

 narl and lime. Sulphate of lime is quite a constant ingredient 



in the soils of the eastern, central and western counties; and less 

 common in the southern, northern, Highland and Atlantic dis- 

 tricts. 



11. The means for increasing the fertility of soil are much 

 greater in all places than may be supposed; for example, all 

 manufacturing establishments have various kinds of wastes, such 

 as hair, wool, bones and animal matter, wood and horn shavings, 

 coal dust and cinders, ashes, waste lime, coal ashes, apple pumice, 

 in which, during decomposition, much ammonia and the jihos- 

 phates exist; carcases of dead animals, weeds of the yards of 

 houses and barns, all of which ought to go into the compost heap; 

 turf by the road side, and the wash of roads, which ought always 

 to be turned upon meadows or pastures. 



12. It is evident from the composition of the numerous beds of 

 slate and shale which exist in all the sedimentary formations that 



