1846. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



249 



The common sense, not only of the profession, 

 but of the community at large, has decided the 

 point that no physician, no matter how well 

 versed he may be in the sciences of anatomy, 

 physiology, and patliology, and in the propemies 

 of medicines, can make a general prescription 

 that will apply to all constitutions and all diseases. 

 He must see every patient, and learn all the facts 

 and circumstances peculiar to each, before he 

 can say what remedies are needed in each par- 

 ticular case. This common sense principle ap- 

 plies witli equal force to the renovation, and 

 lasting improvement of soils, by removing every 

 defect that attaches to each man's farm. We 

 make these observations as an apology for not at- 

 tempting to prescribe rules of practice for the 

 guidance of farmers in the details of wheat cul- 

 ture. Without an analysis, we can only deal in 

 generalities. 



It is obvious that by growing, and sending off 

 a farm, 500 or 1000 bushels of wheat per annum, 

 the ingredients in the surface of the earth tliat 

 combine with elements taken from the atmos- 

 phere to form the seeds of this plant, must grad- 

 ually become less and less, without restitution 

 from some source. The farmers of JMonroe 

 county annually make out of soructJung, and ex- 

 port from their estates, the matter converted into 

 wheat, equal to forty-eight millions of pounds. 

 The whole crop of wheat at sixty pounds to the 

 bushels will weigh nearly one hundred millions 

 of pounds. We do not regard it as impracticable 

 foi" this county to produce and export annually 

 that weight of matter in good wheat, for indefi- 

 nite ages to come. Our reliance is on the ele- 

 ments of this bread forming plant, which nature 

 has stored up in the sub-soil, drift, and solid 

 rocks for hundreds of feet in thickness below the 

 surface of the earth where the plow-share now 

 runs. In many respects this mine of the miner- 

 als required in making good crops of wheat, is 

 vastly superjpr to the resources of the Nile, 

 which enable the people of Egypt not only to 

 feed unnumbered millions at home, but to export 

 to Rome and other cities in Europe and Asia, 

 for thousands of years, an incalculable amount 

 of breadstufis. It is a profound, and most inter- 

 esting study to learn the best process for trans- 

 forming Earth, Air, and Water, into bread, milk, 

 meat, wool, and flax. It is the Earth, aided by 

 air and water, light, heat, and electricity, that 

 furnishes all manures, whether vegetable, ani- 

 mal, or mineral. Hence it is that man plows 

 the earth, harrows the earth, spades the earth, 

 hoes the earth, and cultivates it in a thousand 

 forms, to favor the organization of useful plants. 

 But he fails to plow and mellow the soil deep 

 enough to command the full advantage of its 

 mineral elements. The plow passes over too 

 much surface in a day, and only half so deep as 

 is necessary to give the roots of plants a fair 

 chance to expand, and draw nourishment from a 



considerable depth in the earth. We have re- 

 cently taken up roots of common white beans, 

 grov. n on a deep sandy loam, which extended 2 

 feet each way from the stem, and penetrated 18 

 inches deep into the soil. By placing the stem 

 of a plant in the centre of a square wliose sides 

 are distant 2 feet from it, the area will be 16 ket, 

 or 4 on all sides ; and if we include a depth of 

 18 inches, the solid contents will be 24 cubic 

 feet of soil to yield food to the growing plants. 

 Now, limit the extension of the roots of the plant 

 to one foot in all directions, to the dcj)tli of 9 in- 

 ches, and you will have a surface of only 4 square 

 feet, containing just one-eighth j^irl of 24 cubic 

 feet. Every body knows that a hard, impervious 

 soil is fatal to the growtli of bountiful crops. — 

 Plow, then, a narrow furrow, move all the earth 

 down eight inches, and let a sub-soil plow follow- 

 in tlie same tracks, to break up, and pulverize 

 the compact earth six or eight inches deeper. — 

 This will enable the oxygen and carbonic acid 

 in the atmosph.ere, and other meteoric elements, 

 to decompose the before insoluble silicates and 

 phosphates of potash, soda, and lime ; and per- 

 mit the thirsty roots of starving plants to go down 

 and drink in the nourishment which they most 

 need. In this operation the sub-soil is not brought 

 to the surface, but only broken up, and made 

 friable and pervious to water, air, and roots, in 

 all respects like the surface-soil. In studying 

 the art of plowing, as practised in Western New 

 York, we have witnessed the too prevalent cus- 

 tom of letting the plow run far to land, by which 

 the whole of the furrow slice is not cut up and 

 separated from the earth below. Although the 

 defect and bad work are covered up from the 

 view of superlicial observers, still the injury will 

 be very serious to the crop. Plow line and deep, 

 executing the work as you would for a garden, 

 when you intended to raise beets two feet in 

 length and weighing 10 or 18 lbs. To give a 

 due degree of compactness to the surface, the 

 roller may be used, after seeding, to good advan- 

 tage. How one can best increase the elements- 

 that form wheat in land, where they are lacking 

 in the sub-soil, as well as in the soil above it, 

 is a subject of so much practical importance that 

 it can onl}^ be fully elucidated by another article 

 on wheat culture as long as this, which will ap- 

 pear in our December number. 



Grafting the Tomato ui'on the Potato. — 

 Mr. Meigs read from the " Annals of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society of Paris," before the New 

 York Farmers' Club, an account of a successful 

 experiment of grafting a stem of the tomato upon 

 the stalk of a potato, by which a crop of toma- 

 toes were raised in the air, and one of potatoes 

 in the earth. 



The Indians on one of the islands in Lake 

 Huron made the present year one hundred tons 

 of maple sugar. 



