28 



GENESEE FARMER 



Feb. 1845 



A lartre portion of tlie elements found in fjuano, 

 and the salts or minerals neec-.ssary to the growth of 

 plants, escape from the bodies of animals, whether 

 man or brute, by their kidneys. You need not be 

 told that the liquid excretions of all animals are salty 

 and that this saline matter must come from their 

 food. Small as this mineral substance really is, 

 when compared with the gross arnovrnt of matter ta- 

 ken into the animal system, it is quite indispensable 

 in the composition of the vegetables that fur- 

 nish it. 



There are two and a half millions of people in 

 this State, and they may consume an average of five 

 bushels of wheat each per annum. This would use 

 up 12,500,000 bushels a year, or 100,000,000 bushels 

 in eight years. Now, bear in mind the important 

 fact, that it will take just as much and precisely sim- 

 ilar ingredients to form the second 100,000,000 bush- 

 els that were consumed to make the first. Owing 

 to the great abundance — say 80 per cent, — of these 

 ingredients, according to my estimate, being provi- 

 ded by Infinite Benevolence every where at our 

 hands, their loss to the wheat-grower is not impor- 

 tant. But there are elements in this grain which 

 are not abundant, in a form ready to enter into the 

 organization of wheat plants^ When we have the 

 seed, the land plowed, harrowed, and fenced, at no 

 small expense, and ninety four or Jive per cent, of 

 every thing required to give SO bushels to the acre, 

 the other 6 per cent, of ingredients lacking are 

 v.-orth treble their v.'eight in clean wheat, if they 

 will add 15 bushels per acre to the crop. 



What was the value per pound of th.e fe\y horn 

 shavings used by the Mayor of Albany, which added 

 90 bushels of corn to two acres of tand, more than 

 were harvested on an acre in all other respects treated 

 like the tvv^o named ? Some of you may have no- 

 ticed, that one kernel of wheat will often send up 

 ten stems ; and that, under favorable circumstances, 

 each stem will bear an ear containing 100 or more 

 plump seeds. I have frequently counted over 130 

 seeds in a head or car. This is less than half the 

 yield of stems which has been obtained, yet it shows 

 a perfect willingness, and the capacity, in Nature to 

 give a return of one thousand fold on the seed plant- 

 ed. A single peck of seed planted on an acre, in 

 drills, and judiciously supplied with all the ingredi- 

 ents necessary to form perfect plants, and yielding 

 at this rate, would give a crop of 250 bushels. 



Experience has demonstrated the practicability of 

 increasing largely the yield of grain without aug- 

 menting the growth of straw in an equal ratio. You 

 will bear witness to the truth of the remark, that it 

 is not always the heaviest yield of straw in wheat, 

 oats, corn, clover, or peas, that gives the most grain 

 or seed. I assure you, that if you will feed to your 

 hungry plants a good deal more of those ingredients 

 taken from them, and most insanely thrown away in 

 urine, you will soon know, why guano is worth sixty 

 dollars a ton. 



By cultivating the soil with the plow and hoe, it 

 loses not only the minerals carried off in the crops, 

 but not a little of the same substances while dissolv- 

 ed in water, which, instead of being taken up into 

 the circulation of cultivated plants, pass with the 

 water into creeks, rivers, and the ocean. How 

 much of the valuable salts of lime, potash, soda, and 

 magnesia are lost from cultivated land, it is impossi- 

 ble to say. But there is scarcely a spring or well, 

 especially in a good grain country, whose water is 

 not " hard." By evaporating a few gallons of such 



water in a clean vessel, a thin coat of wdiite powder 

 will cover its hot tern and .>-idei — being the minerals 

 held in solution in the water, which it took from the 

 earth. 



All the streams that flow into the ocean have more 

 or less cf these saline ingredients dissolved in them. 

 The sea is a vast salt-pan, with no other outlet than 

 by solar evaporation. The known difference in the 

 water tlial. falls from the clouds on to the land and 

 that which runs into the ocean — the water running 

 in being salt, and that which escapes by solar evap 

 oration being fresh — makes the water in the ocean 

 very salt, and crystalized more or less, like that in a 

 vat used to make salt, at Salina. No small portion 

 of the rocks foin->d in the bed of the sea are composed 

 of ingredients which, like the crust of lime in a tea- 

 kettle, were once dissolved in water. Few are 

 aware that the materials carried, either mechanical- 

 ly, like mud, gravel, and sand, or in solution, to the 

 ocean, from ancient islands and continents, have 

 formed rocks on this continent estimated at, and I 

 may say measured, by Prof. Rogers, to the depth of 

 forty thousand feet. 



Mr. Philips, in his " Elements of Geology," sets 

 down the perpendicular thickness of the rocks in 

 Great Britain, which abound in the remains of plants 

 and animals that once lived on the earth, at six and a 

 half miles. Viewed with a chemical and geological 

 eye, the soil in Western New York has many inte- 

 resting features. It possesses many minerals of 

 great value to be used in the preparation of compott 

 heaps. I regret that I have not time to go into de- 

 tails in the matter of combining and preparing the 

 precise elements required by Nature to form the 

 plants most cultivated in this section. To absorb 

 many of the valuable gasses given off from ferment- 

 ing manure, I have reason to befieve that there is 

 nothing better than pulverized charcoal, mixed with 

 plaster. It is a subject worthy of much study, to 

 learn how to save and use to the best advantage all 

 the solid and liquid excretions of every animal that 

 feeds on the fruits of the earth. • 



Nature has done much for the farmers of Monroe 

 County, in providing ready to your hands a soil re- 

 markable for its fertility, and an atmosphere, for your 

 lungs, not less remarkable for its salubrity. I re- 

 joice to know that these great natural advantages 

 are duly appreciated and welt deserved^ by a rural 

 population alike distinguished for their intelligence 

 and their industry. Think not, that while I contend 

 we all have something to learn, I would under- 

 estimate the wonderful improvements which have 

 been made by the hardy tillers of the earth in Wes- 

 tern New York. No man respects honest, productive 

 industry more than I do. All I desire is, to ste it 

 better directed, that it may be better rewaj-ded. I 

 have often felt, and often expressed, my deep anxiety 

 to see the time when every practical farmer in the 

 State shall be able to produce all that he and his fa- 

 mily shall need, or a fair equivalent, and then know- 

 quite as well how to keep and enjoy the rich fruits of 

 his honest toil, as all the non-producers in the land 

 sliall know how to exchange their shadows for the 

 working man's substance. 



Believe me — those that create, by hard work, 

 nearly all the good things consumed by civilized 

 man, ought to learn how to keep, as well as how to 

 earn property. Pauperism is on the increase, and it 

 would be well if every man, woman, and child knew 

 the reason why. 



