No. 4. Address delivered before the Ag. Society of JVen- castle Co., Del. 125 



and it is of high necessity in ahnost every 

 soil. It is sometimes applied, however, with 

 little apparent advantage. No substitute 

 has been or can be found, for barn-yard ma- 

 nure. It never fails to produce cti'ect. It 

 is not easily overdone in application, and 

 nets as a fertilizer atler its stimulating pro- 

 perties have ceased. Both lime and gypsum 

 are often wasted by excess in use. VVhen 

 soils have become saturated with them they 

 very much cease to act. They are never- 

 theless almost indispensable in the fertilizing 

 of land, but they go but a short way unac- 

 companied by dressings that have passed 

 under animals. While quick lime is bene- 

 ficial to every soil, gypsum seems not to 

 have that quality. An eminent farmer and 

 writer in New York has stoutly denied that 

 it has any effect on vegetation. He would 

 be a bold man that would deny it to have 

 that quality here. In Britain it has been 

 little known as a manure; while it is held 

 in estimation with us, and in Germany. 

 Bone-dust has been represented as produc- 

 ing very surprising results. I have never 

 witnessed its application, nor has it so far as 

 I know, scarcely been used as a manure on 

 this side of the Atlantic. It must be of lim- 

 ited obtainment under the most saving econ- 

 omy. It is perhaps the most practical em- 

 bodiment of the phosphate of lime, and a 

 good application for a wheat crop. 



"Guano is the latest substance that has 

 been brought into notice in the list of ma- 

 nures. I have witnessed its application but 

 to a very limited extent. The benefit af- 

 forded, if any, was not striking. Its analy- 

 sis indicates that it has stimulating qualities, 

 and it seems to be better adapted to soils al- 

 ready fertile, than those of more meagre 

 condition. To stable manure we must main- 

 ly look, to fit our lands for more costly stim- 

 ulants. The early application of lime pro- 

 duced a much greater effect upon ploughed 

 crops, than it has subsequently done. It is 

 now found to be most beneficial to the cul- 

 tivated grasses; and thus adds greatly to 

 the wealth of the barn-yard. Experience 

 has not allowed me to place much value on 

 green dressing. An equal amount passed 

 through the stables will pay any additional 

 labour that may be required for that pro- 

 cess." 



"The gathering of the harvest is no 

 longer the hazardous and laborious employ- 

 ment it remained to be even in recent mem- 

 ory. Much more is now bettor done and in 

 shorter time, than in previous periods. In 

 early life I spent some eight years in a me- 

 chanical employment; and though my skill 

 never could satisfy my taste, yet I look to 

 that era of my life when I was a tradesman, 



with pride and gratification. It has tended 

 to make me a liappier man, and one more 

 useful to others than myself! Though I 

 have been for half a century a tiller of the 

 earth, I feel full fraternity with those who 

 exercise the mechanic arts. In the sequel 

 of life man seems by a sort of instinctive 

 impulse, to recur to the art of cultivation. 

 No matter what has engaged his earlier at- 

 tention, or what may have been his success 

 in business, to the field and garden he looks 

 at last to realize enjoyments no other scene 

 can give. Cultivation owes much to the 

 taste and enterprise of some of o?jr distin- 

 2-uished merchants and professional men. 

 We have still to look for much from them. 

 They will act more from taste and public 

 spirit, than for mere profit, which will have 

 lost to them much of its charms. They 

 bring to their new avocation means to ex- 

 periment, and leisure to observe and weigh 

 the result. By such a process are useful 

 truths only to be wrought out. 



" This country, as it were, but yesterday 

 was found by our ancestors, overshadowed 

 by ancient forests. The labour was to re- 

 move, not to cultivate; a labour not yet 

 wholly accomplished. Our oaks and pines 

 are, however, fast receding from us before 

 the potency of the axe. Our hickory, re- 

 cently admitted by botanists to rank as a 

 family, has become scarce. I know of no 

 substitute for its timber in the useful arts, 

 either native or foreign. Who has thought 

 of rearing or sparing this treel Having a 

 tap root, it is as little hurtful to grain and 

 grasses as almost any other tree. Its growth 

 is accelerated in the open air. The fruit of 

 some of its varieties is of such richness and 

 flavor, that commerce has found throughout 

 the world no rival. I have heard the vene- 

 rable Duponceau say, 'it graced the board 

 and gave zest to the meals of the father of 

 his country, at Valley Forge.' 



" Europe has long held our locust in high 

 desert as an ornamental tree. Its flowers 

 and its leaflets are formed in the line of 

 beauty, yet fragrance added to this, forms 

 but a small part of its merits. It is pecu- 

 liarly fitted for cultivation, and its growth is 

 rapid without impoverishing the soil. The 

 monotony of the ocean prairies of the West 

 is spoken of as painful to the sight; a country 

 denuded of its trees, as too much of ours is 

 becoming, is little less painful to behold. To 

 animals, cool and refreshing shades are as 

 vivifying in summer heats, as the shade of 

 a rock in a weary land, to the way-worn 

 traveller of the desert. Trees properly 

 placed are not more a relief from summer 

 heats, than a protection from the blasts of 

 winter aud the storms incident to every 



