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TUE GENESEE FARMER. 



tlic practice of rural economy. For what little we have learned since the above was 

 written in the eighteenth century, we are indebted to the agi'icultural schools and pro- 

 fessors of Europe. We have lost a half century in agricultural progress ; for witliout 

 gemiine science tliore can be no substantial progress. Every school boy should know 

 that practice alone only repeats what practice had before done, so that progress is im- 

 l-wssible. An experiment is a search after a thing unknown, or it is no experiment. 

 S.«ch an investigation is prompted, not by practice, but by theory. Theories differ as 

 wideiv in value as agricultural practice ; but while most cultivators are quick to discover 

 defects in p.ractice, all theories of farming appear to tliem alike worthless, except their 

 own. To have a sound theory, one needs large experience in rural affairs, and to be 

 well read in the Hterature and sciences that appertain to agriculture. Such an one 

 must know that the damage annually done to American soil can not be repaired by any 

 known process for less than three hundred and thirty-six millions of dollars ; and that, 

 as the crops grown and removed inci-efise rapidly from year to year, the injury increases 

 in the same ratio. The alkalies that draw nitre from the air, as stated by L'Homme- 

 DiEU, are now extracted from 112,042,000 acres, and thrown into rivers, lakes, and the 

 ocean, to improve the soil ! 



In Europe, where ashes are less abundant than in this country, they are extensively 

 used for making artificial nitre beds in conjunction with manure. In forming such beds, 

 care is taken to leave open passages under them for the free passage of air, from which 

 nitrogen is absorbed in forming the nitric acid which combined with potash produces 

 saltpetre, and united to soda foi-ms cubic nitre. To extract the food of plants from the 

 atmosphere, and retain it in the soil in a condition to meet the wants of plants, all 

 alkalies (potash, soda, and ammonia,) and alkaline earths (Ume and magnesia,) are 

 invaluable. It is this fact that makes us regret the constant waste of alkalies on farms, 

 in villages, and in cities. Some fancy theorists teach, that barely shading the ground 

 will develop a nitre-bed anywhere, as though potash could be extracted from pure sand 

 or pure clay. This mineral is no better husbanded now in the United States by the 

 mass of citizens in cities and rural districts, than it was sixty years ago; nor is the pro- 

 duction of saltpetre in barnyards better understood now than in the time of L'Homme- 

 DiEU. No satisfactory experiments have been inade during the first half of the present 

 century in drawing the nourishment of cultivated crops from the atmosphere, and hence 

 no advancement in knowledffe has been achieved in that direction. 



MIXING SOILS AND MANURES. 



An acre of soil, estimated to tlie depth of ten inches, weighs usually not far fi-om a 

 thousand tons. It is a heavy dressing of common stable manure, equal to thirty loads 

 of over a ton each, which supplies ten tons of solid matter to the acre. Admitting that 

 one applies that quantity, every one hundred grains of soil to the depth of ten inches 

 sliould have one grain of finely divided manure intimately blended, and perfectly incor- 

 porated with it. This is the ideal of garden culture, in which well rotted manure and 

 deep and frequent tillage form a soil of exceeding fertility. In ordinary farming, the 

 manure goes into the ground in comparatively large and isolated masses, while hundreds 

 of pounds of earth may be found without a particle of the applied f* rtilizer within it. 

 In one place, the roots of plants have an excess of manure ; and in another, they are in 

 a starving condition. If it is bad to do without any manure, it is but little better, and 

 often worse, to make so unwise a use of this food of crops. Manure is the elixir of veg- 

 etable life — the very " salt of the earth." How, then, ought manure to be prepared ? 

 How applied to tilled land, meadows, and pastures ? 



K all soils, all climates, all manures, and all crops, were alike, nothing would be easier . j- 



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