* TOTHEPUBLIC. 



bending under the weight of the golden grain of the ripened ear, 

 forms a glorious rural spectacle, and is that crop which of all 

 others clothes the husbandman's landscape in its richest ^eauty. 

 But this plant owes all its importance to its intrinsic value as an 

 article of food ; and could the English farmer grow it, his turnip 

 crop would be comparatively but little esteemed. In this connec- 

 tion, we hesitate not to say, that we regret that many of our 

 agricultural writers advocate the culture of the root crops in imi- 

 tation of the English system of husbandry, in preference to that 

 of maize, which is so well adapted to our superior climate. 



The condition of the American farmer differs from that of the 

 same class in any other country. He is not only the owner of the 

 soil, but he works it with his own hands. Let not this condition 

 be changed. He may be comparatively poor : he has not his 

 thousands to spare for the purchase of compost, nor his hundreds 

 to pay for the erecting of brick and mortar fences. For his labor 

 he requires a speedy return : indeed this is often indispensable for 

 his own and his family's comfort. We do not mean by this 

 remark to advocate what has been termed the skinning process; 

 but as our farmer is not wealthy, and as he performs his own work, 

 his returns are wanted when his crops are harvested. His true 

 policy in cultivation is, notwithstanding, the preservative policy : his 

 system must still be that which husbands the strength of the soil. 



It is moreover the peculiar lot of the American farmer to be 

 placed in proximity to vast and rich forests, superior to anything 

 in the old world ; with a soil deep and black, the debris of nume- 

 rous ancient generations of organized beings both vegetable and 

 animal, intermixed with the fine silt of rivers and lakes. The 

 compost heaps of the English farmer can hardly vie with the rich 

 soil which is spread by the hand of nature over the western prai- 

 ries and beneath the western forests. For this reason, the older 

 and partially exhausted soils of the Atlantic slopes must come in 

 competition with the new and exuberantly rich soils of the west 

 under a great disadvantage, particularly in the cultivation of some 



