AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Agricultural Wabehousk.)— ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



VOI»XIX.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 23, 1841. 



CNO. 51 



N . E . FARMER, 



ON THE MEANS OF INCREASING THE 

 FERTILITY OF LAND. 



The productiveness of any soil, wo thijk, de- 

 pends entirely on its natural or artificial capability 

 ■of retaining or transmitting its moisture, the vehi- 

 cle at least by which nourishment is convej^ed to 

 plants. This productive power may therefore not 

 only be continued in its greatest vigor, but greatly 

 increased by proper management. When vo by 

 any moans give to the soil a permanently increased 

 vegetative power, we also increase the yearlj pro- 

 duce which it yields. 



Such a soil will give not only firmness to sup- 

 port the plants, but will facilitate the growth of 

 their roots in search of moisture and nourisliment 

 to the greatest depth. 



There is not an individual who cultivates a gar- 

 den, and who exercises his judgment in its cuHure, 

 but knows that the addition of clay gives cohfsion 

 to sandy or gravelly soils, and that sand and giavel 

 when mixed with a clayey soil diminishes its tena- 

 cious property ; and that these changes, thus ef- 

 fected, permanently increase the productive pow- 

 ers of both, 



In our endeavor to improve barren soils, we 

 should examine them in connection with fertile 

 soils in their neighborhood, on the same geologcal 

 formation ; and the difference of their constituent 

 parts may lead us to the means of their improve- 

 ment. If the cause of sterility be owing to si me 

 defects in their composition, these defects should 

 be supplied. An excess of silicious sand is im- 

 proved by the application of clay, peat earth, or 

 calcareous matter, cold well rotten manure, and 

 rolling or trampling with sheep or other stock, to 

 consolidate its texture. 



When clay is in excess, it is remedied by the 

 application of sand, chalk-marl, or burned clay, 

 light unfermented manures, and perfect pulveriza- 

 tion, to make the soil friable. An excess of vege- 

 table matter in a dormant state, as in peaty soi's, 

 is corrected by burning, by the application of clay, 

 sand, calcareous matter, gravel, rubble, or any 

 thing' heavy, to give firmness to the soil. Lime 

 not only destroys the injurious effects produced by 

 sulphate of iron, which abounds in some soils, par- 

 ticularly in those of a peaty and silicious gravelly 

 nature, but is said to convert the sulphate of iron 

 into a manure. None of these applications, how- 

 ever, will have the desired effect, unless there be 

 first a perfect subsoil drainage of all superfluous 

 moisture, conjoined with a perfect tillage. 



Stagnant water, in any soil, melts down the 

 particles of matter which composes it, and joins 

 them together in close contact; it prevents the air 

 and water from circulating amongst the roots of 

 the plants, and they therefore die. When a clay- 

 ey soil has been thus closed together by stagnant 

 water, it requires to be perfectly drained, and it 

 can only be recovered by repeated ploughings and 

 harroivings, together with the pulverizing influ- 

 ence of frost to bring it into a fit state for vegeta- 



tion, and if it has been long under water, it ac- 

 quires a pernicious quality, which can only be got 

 quit of with great difliculty, — fallowing, and the 

 application of lime, has a great effect in reviving it. 



The first principles of agriculture, which are 

 shewn by the best practice, are few ; they may bo 

 stated to be these: — make and keep the land per- 

 fectly dry, tind clean, or free Irom weeds; make 

 and keep the soil, which is too adhesive or too 

 loose, of such a friable nature as will make it re- 

 ceive, retain, and transmit moisture, and thus fit it 

 to produce the most luxuriant state of vegetation ; 

 restore to the soil, as a manure, in a state of decay, 

 the greater part, if not the whole, of the produce 

 after it has been consumed by sheep or other stock. 

 Never manure any land till every weed is exter- 

 minated, for wends grow most luxuriantly in the 

 soil to which they are natural : if any of them are 

 left, they will outgrow the plant you intend to cul- 

 tivate, and take up the greatest quantity of the 

 manure l.iid on the land. 



The properties of the mineral matter of which 

 soils are composed, are very various, this variety 

 depending on the nature of the subsoil, as we have 

 elsewhere shown ; but as it is only where soils 

 have the mineral ingredients in a certain propor- 

 tion, that they are capable of imbibing moisture 

 from the atmosphere, of holding the rain which 

 falls on it, and transmitting it to plants as they re- 

 quire it. Of imbibing and retaining heat, and of 

 readily decomposing vegetable matter, which makes 

 up the most valuable soil. A knowledge of these 

 particulars is of the greatest moment to the agri- 

 culturist; by it he will he able to improve the tex- 

 ture of the soil, by adding to it the mineral sub- 

 stance of which it is deficient, so as permanently 

 to improve if. 



To alter the nature and properties of the con- 

 stituents of any soil, may be more expensive than 

 to manure it; but the eifect of the former will be 

 lasting, while that of the latter is transitory ; the 

 one permanently improves the nature and quality 

 of the soil, the other only imparts a temporary ex- 

 citement to force a crop for a year or two. 



The materials ' necessary for the permanent im- 

 provement of the soil are seldom far off, and the 

 expense, though in some instances considerable, is 

 soon repaid by the permanency of its increased 

 fertility; the manure applied afterwards has a 

 much greater efiect, the expense of cultivation is 

 greatly diminished, and the capital laid out is soon 

 restored by its yearly increased produce. By these 

 alterations we store the earth with hidden and in- 

 exhaustible treasures, which, invisible to the eye, 

 put forth their strength and give us the evidence 

 of their presence by the effects produced on vege- 

 tation. 



In the process of vegetation, nature supplies 

 soil, water, light and heat; but the matter compo- 

 sing the soil may not be in such a state as to re- 

 ceive and transmit these in such quantities as will 

 produce a healthy vegetation. 



Man may regulate the supply by cultivation, and 

 by altering the texture of the soil. 



When the materials of which the soil is compo- 



sed are in proper proportion, the soil is most produc- 

 tive ; when any one of the ingredients is in too 

 great a proportion, the soil is unproductive. 



Pure clay, silex, or lime, when alone, we have 

 before stated, is barren ; but if they ore mixed to- 

 gether, having a due portion of water, the influ- 

 ence of the sun and a proper admission of air, 

 (which are the prime movers in vegetable life,) 

 a fermentation amongst the materials is created : 

 and if vegetable and animal manure in a state of 

 decomposition be combined with these, the soil, 

 which was sterile when separate, will become pro- 

 ductive when combined, and this mixture of mate- 

 rials and mechanical alteration will change tlie 

 texture, and improve the quality of the soil. — Mor- 

 ton on Soils. 



Perfkct Sobsoil Dkainage and Deep Flowing. 



Every variety of good soil has a naturally dry 

 porous subsoil, being either a deep, friable, porous 

 earth, sand, or gravel, or open rock; so that rain 

 water will not rest on its surface, but readily pass 

 through the stratum below. 



The greatest injury which the land receives is 

 from stagnant water on the surface, or between the 

 soil and the subsoil. 



Bad and worthless clay soil is generally that 

 which is saturated by stagnant water. 



If water be allowed to remain on good land, it 

 will soon convert it into bad or worthless soil ; — a 

 retentive subsoil has generally a soft or clayey sur- 

 face, and is universally a bad and unproductive 

 soil. 



When the subsoil is retentive, the rain finds its 

 way through the cultivated portion of the surface 

 to the subsoil, and passes on slips between them 

 to the furrows, keeping the cultivated portions of 

 the soil wet and unfit for vegetation; but if the 

 subsoil be porous, either naturally or artificially, it 

 then goes directly through (he subsoil or porous 

 passage to the drains that are formed to draw off 

 the redundant water. 



It is the constant practice of the most scientific 

 gardeners, when about to pot any plants, to put 

 some broken tiles or gravel in the bottom of the 

 pots to drain off the superfluous moisture from the 

 plants to the hole in the bottom of the flower pots; 

 and when they use a strongish or clay soil, instead 

 of passing the soil through a sieve, as formerly was 

 the custom, they now chop it into small pieces, and 

 thus give to strongish clay soils an artificial po- 

 rousness which they naturally do not possess. 



On examining the roots of plants growing in 

 pots with soil >hus prepared, we find the crevices 

 between the broken pieces of earth full of roots 

 because they have not only a more easy passage 

 where the soil is friable, in consequence of the 

 lumps keeping the earth loose and porous between 

 them, but here the drainage is most rapid and com- 

 plete. 



Land is not perfectly drained which, during the 

 wettest weather, has any spots on it which the wa- 

 ter rests upon, and gets stagnant for a short period. 

 The rain should have a free course to sink down 

 through the subsoil below the roots of plants, and 



