1846. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



153 



served, and the use of plaster has been resumed, 

 and liberally applied, without however, its usual 

 effect on vegetation. During the first ten or fif- 

 teen years after its use was commenced ils ac- 

 tion upon clover and wheat was truly marvelous, 

 and from the rich luxuriance of these crops, and 

 the improved aspect of the soil, the highest de- 

 gree of enduring fertility was anticipated. 



More attention, during the whole of this period, 

 was paid to making and applying manure than 

 perhaps on any other farm in the county, and as 

 tobacco has not been cultivated, the manure has 

 been used for the general improvement of the 

 farm, and not on particular fields for the benefit of 

 that crop. While such has been the diminution 

 of the wheat crop, the capacity of the soil for the 

 production of corn has greatly increased. Heav- 

 ier crops of this grain is being now raised than 

 ever before. 



Clover also has declined, although not to the 

 same extent of wheat. On an adjoining farm, 

 identical in soil and all its leading characteristics, 

 where clover and plaster have been used only for 

 the last three years, ten bushels of wheat to one 

 sown was harvested the present year. On the 

 farm under review only three bushels of wheat 

 from one of seed was harvested, from land that 

 yields a third more corn tlian the former. Fields 

 that have not produced a crop of the latter grain 

 (corn,) for six or eight years, if thoroughly pre- 

 pared and well sown with \vheat in due season, 

 produce crops really worth harvesting. Every 

 change of rotation has been resorted to on the 

 farm that fails to bring wheat, without improve- 

 ment. 



That this is not owing to ^^'nerrtZ sterility is ev- 

 ident from the fact that, other crops succeed where 

 wheat will not grow. Similar instances of the 

 special exhaustion of the soil have occurred in 

 other districts of our country, and are doubtless 

 to be attributed to the injudicious course of culti- 

 vating the same crop too frequently on the same 

 land, instead of alternating unlike crops, and 

 thereby enlarging the interval between crops of 

 a like composition. Our very limited acquain- 

 tance with agricultural chemistry would deter us 

 from hazarding an opinion or even a conjecture 

 on so interesting a subject but for the hope of at- 

 tracting to it the attention of others, whose taste 

 and pursuits may enable them to point out a rem- 

 edy where the evil already exists, and the means 

 by which it may be avoided where it may yet 



occur. 



Jas. Newman, 

 Jno. Willis, 

 E. Henshaw, 



Com. on Farms. 



ANSWER TO THE ABOVE. 



We omit the speculations of the Committee 

 from a lack of room. 



The facts in this well authenticated case are of 

 great importance. They elucidate a material. 



and by many doubted point in the science of ag- 

 riculture. Practically they demonstrate, what 

 we have long maintained, that neither ordinary 

 barn yard manure, nor gypsum alone is adapted 

 to the production of perfect wheat plants. So 

 long as the surface soil contains, in fair propor- 

 tions, all the elements of wheat, this crop may be 

 successfully cultivated. But when it fails in that 

 regard, the restitution of tlie lacking ingredients 

 is a matter more difficult, in pratice, than most 

 men are aware of. We suppose from the cir- 

 cumstances attending the culture of the farm in 

 question, that the surface soil now lacks the phos- 

 phoric acid required to form good crops of wheat. 

 In forming 1000 lbs of the seeds of this invalua- 

 ble plant, nature uses not far from twelve pounds 

 of the acid above named. If a farmer were to 

 feed 1000 lbs. of shelled corn to his swine, and 

 save every particle of their dung and urine to 

 apply to his wheat fallow, and all the phosphoric 

 acid in the manure should enter into the compo- 

 sition, not of the stems and seeds of wheat, but of 

 the seeds alone, it would furnish phosphorus 

 enough for only 400 lbs. of wheat. We wish to 

 call particular attention to the fact that, it requires 

 2500 lbs, of corn to furnish the mineral elements 

 necessary to make 1000 lbs. of wheat. Hence, 

 it is obvious that, to make that amount of wheat 

 from manure formed by the consumption of corn, 

 a large excess of other ingredients than phos- 

 phates — mainly organic elements — must be ap- 

 plied to the soil. This excess will, in practice, 

 be found injurious, if not ruinous to the crop. — 

 The same reasoning will apply with greater 

 force when one attempts to form the seeds of 

 wheat from connnon barnyard manure, -which is 

 itself made up of the elements contained in corn 

 stalks and leaves, timothy, blue grass, oats, buck- 

 wheat, &c. As a general rule, we find, on a 

 critical examination, that, it will take six parts 

 of dry barnyard manure to form all the constitu- 

 ents required to make one part of the seeds of 

 wheat. This is true of wheat straw. In making 

 the latter into manure and then into potatoes, 

 there is a loss of 50 per cent, of the fertilizing 

 elements contained in wheat straw. But we are 

 digressing. 



One reason ivhy a fair crop of corn may be 

 grown on land that will not bear wheat is, be- 

 cause the roots of corn are three times longer 

 than those of wheat, and hence imbibe the mine- 

 ral elements required to form the ash in the 

 stems, cobs, and seeds of this plant, from a depth 

 in the earth quite beyond the reach of the roots 

 of the wheat plant. Hence, too, a soil that has so 

 little phosphoric acid that it will grow only four 

 bushels of wheat per acre, may raise twenty-five 

 of corn. The roots of clover are longer than 

 those of wheat, and of course draw alkaline phos- 

 phates from a greater depth than the latter plant. 



It is owing to this fact that by plowing in a crop 

 of clover on a wheat fallow, we place in the sur- 



