44 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jax. 



For the iS'tw Kn^land Farmer. 



MATURING PLAin:S. 



[Reply to R. Mc I.] 

 BY A. G. COMINGS. 



Mr. Mclntire further notices my article as fol- 

 lows : — " He asserts that those plants which pro- 

 duce seed the first year of their <;rowth, and then 

 die, draw away the substance of the roots to ma- 

 ture their seeds, and is the cause of their death 

 Is this true, or do they die because they have full- 

 filled the law of their bein;f '? ^Vre these [there] 

 not perennial plants that produce and mature 

 their seed from the first and many successive years 

 from the same root '? " 



1. I will answer: first, as to the law of being of 

 pUnts, that is part of the question. It has 

 been supposed by many, like j\Ir. Mclntire, that 

 certain plants have a fi-xed time to live, however 

 they may be treated, and that their death must 

 come then, ''as shure as fate." Certain bulbous 

 rooted plants, as the onion, (and I tliiuk herd's- 

 grass has the same habit.) form a bulb one year 

 and produce seed the next. A new side bulb is 

 formed on the year of seeding, and the seed-pro- 

 ducing bulb dies with the production of seed. 

 Yet the onion, if it does not mature the bulb the 

 first year, will not produce good seed the second 

 year. Put that idea up garret, and if you want to 

 raise good onion seed, be sure you set the most 

 perfect and ripe bulbs; for it is a law of such 

 plants to depend for the accomplishment of the 

 second year's work, (producing seed,) upon the 

 capital accumulated the first year. Small bulbs, 

 or small tap-roots, in a soil containing only a small 

 amount of carbonaceous food, will produce but a 

 small quantity of seed, and much of that will most 

 likely be shrivelled and worthless. This fact is 

 sustained by the experience of almost every far- 

 mer. The reason is evident. 



We may also add, if it is so with bulbous and 

 tap-rooted plants, how much more dependent upon 

 the soil will be the fibrous-rooted plants, such as 

 corn, wheat, rye, oats, &c. If I mistake not, none 

 of these die at the root until they make the natural 

 attempt to produce and mature seed. Yet, the 

 biennial plants, whenever for any cause they are 

 hurried to mature seed the first season, lose vitality 

 at the root. 



I have seen fields of clover used as pastures for 

 cows, in which the clover roots lived many years. 

 It would not be so, however, to use pastures as 

 New England farmers generally do. (Of that I 

 have not now time lor further explanation.) 

 Facts assure me that clover, in proper circum- 

 stances, will live many years. It will not, how- 

 ever, if it is allowed to drive its vital forces mto 

 the production of seed. Even the blo.s3oms of clo- 

 ver contain a rich store of carbon and nitric acid, 

 ready to supply the first want of the growing 

 seed. If the root is exhausted of these substances 

 in combination, die it must. No plant dies until 

 the vital energies of the root are exhausted, in or- 

 dinary circumstances. 



In the animal and in the vegetable kingdoms, 

 the fii-st great law of health and life is that the 

 preservation of the vital energies preserves health 

 and perpetuates life ; while the only natural cause 

 of death is the exhaustion of those vital forces. 

 This great principle ought to be understood by 



applicable to all animal life, in man or brute, and 

 is alike applicable to all vegetable life. It shor.ld 

 be written where it would be read m the morninc 

 and in the evening, at the going out and at the 

 coming in of every thinking, moving moital. Life 

 and health are more for our own keeping, than to 

 be thrown into the care of doctors. Trees, grapes, 

 shrubs, all may die from overbearing. It is the 

 exhaustion of the vital energies. Death is not 

 natural from any other cause. Man, the monarch 

 of this mundane sphere, may overtax his energies 

 for the reproduction of his species, or task himself 

 in daily toil beyond his gifts, or neglect his regu- 

 lar supply of wholesome aliment, and he (juickly 

 brings the enginry of death thundering along his 

 track. Not an eye grows dim, not a hair is blight- 

 ed, not a flower fades, without a cause. 



2. Mr. Mclntire says, "Some farmers never plow 

 in grain crops, and yet for many years raise good 

 crops of corn and grain. How is this fact recon- 

 ciled with his remarks about seed-producing crops 

 exhausting the soil, and rendering it necessary to 

 plow in grain crops ?" 



Answer. There were in my old arithmetic, 

 which I used in the simple times of my boyhood, 

 when I went to school at the old district school- 

 house which stood on the shady side of a New 

 Hampshire hill, two very simple rules, called Ad- 

 dition and Subtraction. From the simple rules of 

 that very simjile old arithmetic I was simple 

 enough to take the idea that a continual taking 

 away, which was called subtraction, without any- 

 putting back, which would be called addition, 

 would result in the exhastion of what there was at 

 first ; so that, after a while, when the trial should 

 be made to take something away from nothing, the 

 answer as given by the old school-master would 

 be, "Fow can't." Well, I fell into the simple idea 

 of applying this to farming. So I would say to Mr. 

 Mclntire, if those farmers who have taken many 

 good seed-crops from the same soil work only by 

 the rule of subtraction inreltjrence to the caibona- 

 ceous matter in the soil, the time must sooner or 

 later come when the answer of their figuring will 

 be "FoM can'L" Facts are as strong as figures. 



Carbon comes not alone from the plowing in of 

 green crojjs ; but it all comes from green crops, 

 originally. From deposits of meadow muck, or 

 from animal excrements, the needed supply of old 

 vegetable matter may be obtained, for small lots 

 of ground. But why should the idea of manuring 

 with green crojjs be so generally disregarded, 

 when millions of acres of New England soil could 

 thereby be made worth double what it now is, by 

 a small outlay of expense. There is just the same 

 sense in crop after crop, and then crop after crop, 

 requiring carbon, without adopting a course of ac- 

 tion to replemish the soil, that there would be in 

 milking, milking, milking, day after day, week 

 after week, the old brown cow, without giving her 

 hay, grass, grain or roots, out of which to manu- 

 facture milk. 



Certain it is that the husbandman has a right to 

 put the atmosphere and the rain under the strict 

 payment of tribute, for his j^rofit, as well as the 

 merchant or the miller, the sawyer or the sailor. 

 Right up here in this blue atmosphere, ready to 

 be sucked into the solid matter of vegetable growth, 

 is a mine of manure, more inexhaustible than the 

 mines of Peruvian Islands, and more precious in 



every man, every woman and every child. It is value than mountains of gold. Every breathing 



