1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



445 



compared with that laid up in dryer and warmer 

 seasons. 



It is not intended as a compliment to New 

 Hampshire, I suppose, when it is said that it is a 

 good State to emigrate /)-o??i. Better would it be 

 for thousands who stray to regions of gold, or 

 even to those of less glitter and pretension, if 

 they would settle in New Hampshire and feed 

 cattle upon a thousand hills, or cultivate its rich 

 valleys, or rear hardy and intelligent boys and 

 girls to become the future glory and strength of 

 their country. I meet no more sensible, indepen- 

 dent and hospitable people anywhere than I find 

 in the Granite State, — and if there is any scarcity 

 of the gentler sex in the Bay State, I commend 

 the gii'ls up here to the respectful consideration 

 of those young bachelors who are seeking a yoke 

 fellow "down in your parts." Simon Brown. 



Joel Nourse, Esq. 



BESTORATIOW OP EXHAUSTED SOILS. 



The term, worn out soil, is of common use, and 

 still no such soil ever existed. Any soil which 

 has ever been fertile, is capable of being rendered 

 so again, and without the addition of any new 

 material, but only by altering the conditi'^n of 

 the soil's constituents, by presenting conditions 

 analogous to those which Nature has always used 

 to render soils fertile. Ail soils are made up of 

 powdered rocks, rendered fine by the various 

 operations of nature, and composed only of the 

 constituents of rocks and such other deposits as 

 under peculiar circumstances may be received 

 from the atmosphere — such as carbon, from its 

 solidification in plant life by the decomposition 

 of carbonic acid gas taken from the atmosphere, 

 intermixed with which it is held in suspension. 



Neither the presence, however, of all the pri- 

 maries required for plant life in a soil, nor indeed 

 of all the primaries in nature, will insure plant- 

 growth. The condition of these primaries, and 

 not their presence alone, is necessary to success- 

 ful vegetation. When portions of the earth's 

 crust, known as soil, have been many times in 

 plant form and return again to the soil, then 

 those poi'tions are rendered capable of forming 

 parts of such vegetable growths as men and ani- 

 mals now require, and when these are removed 

 from the soil by the continuous removal of crops, 

 it will then cease to be fertile until new portiotis 

 are progressed by the same or other means. At 

 the same time all may know by the help of the 

 chemist, that the constituents of many soils, for 

 the time barren, are the same as those of fertile 

 soils, by name, but diflering only in condition. 

 The whole soil, from the earth's surface to the 

 undecomposed rocks below, as a rule, contains 

 the constituents of plants, and therefore cannot 

 be said to he worn out, but requiring the progres- 

 sion of a portion of these constituents, viz., an 

 alteration in condition, before they are available 

 to plants. 



Considering the earth's surface then as an 

 endless or inexhaustible source of raw material, 

 from which plants may be created, it only remains 

 to ascertain the means of placing these raw ma- 



terials in proper condition for assimilation, and 

 we have a method for restoring what are usually 

 called loom out soils. AVhat changes must occur 

 in the particles of the soil to produce the neces- 

 sary changes in condition, so as to insure their 

 appropriation in plant life! It is evident that at 

 least these particles must be rendered soluble in 

 water; thus silex is only soluble after its chemical 

 combination with an alkali, and indeed every con- 

 stituent requires some change before it can be 

 used as the food of plants. Let us see what pro- 

 bably occurs in fallow soils, or those bearing no 

 crops : the circulation of atmosphere between the 

 particles, (and there can be no chemical changes 

 without such condition) deposits upon the cold 

 surface of every particle a thin film of water, 

 which being thus extended, takes up carbonic 

 acid, increasing its power as a solvent, and by 

 dissolving minute portions from the surfaces of 

 particles, open these prison houses and permit 

 new constituents to be aff'ected in turn by new 

 potions of carbonated water, which upon the 

 receipt of each ingredient thus freed from their 

 resting-places, is rendered capable of freeing an- 

 other by chemical change, until in course of time 

 the land contains a fair proportion of its own 

 constituents in a progressed condition. All this 

 progressed plant-food is slightly soluble under 

 certain circumstances, and in this way bare fal- 

 lows, as they are called, imitate vegetable growth 

 by progressing plant constituents. Do we not 

 see this operation continuously going on in 

 nature? and should not the art of the Agricul- 

 turist be to avail of such natural laws as are ap- 

 plicable to fallows in a more rapid manner ? We 

 claim that this may be done so as to cause a 

 single year to represent the effects of a century ; 

 every particle of soil, if viewed through a micro- 

 scope, imitates in appearance the rock from 

 whence it came, and its analysis will show the 

 same constituents ; nature's laws debridised the 

 rock and gave us the particle, it becomes our 

 business to facilitate the continuation of the ope- 

 ration of these laws on the particle, to insure its 

 still further division and consequent exposure 

 and change of condition of its constituents. 



Some of the so called barren soils of Massachu- 

 setts being coarse pebbles and gravel, contain 

 the same primaries as do the fine soils of the 

 Miami Vally, but are the conditions of these 

 constituents alike ? And will the ordinary|analy- 

 sis ofiered by chemists who are incapable of re- 

 cognizing these conditions, show any difi"erence 

 between the two soils, the one fertile the other 

 barren? Will a cabbage grow upon a granite 

 rock ? And does not this rock contain all the 

 inorganic constituents required by the cabbage? 

 Will it grow in the powder of this rock, if finely 

 ground, until after it has been exposed to atmo- 

 spheric influence and proper state of humidity for 

 so long a time, as to free portions of its constitu- 

 ents and pi'ogress them for plant use ? Would 

 not the powder of the granite rock placed imme- 

 diately over an under-drain exhibit these condi- 

 tions in a single year ? We answer yes : and we 

 say fearlessly that many soils which are compara- 

 tively barren for want of progression, may be 

 rendered fertile by thorough draining and subsoil 

 plowing, if left in bare fallow, but that until a 

 portion of the constituents be so acted upon, the 

 continued change will be comparatively slow, 



