No. 2. 



Scientific Farming. — Improving Soils. 



55 



whence the lime can be taken to the farthest 

 extremity, in comparatively an hour of time; 

 and near them is a muck-hole, which has re- 

 ceived the washings of the adjoinino; lands 

 perhaps for aijes, where a thousand loads of 

 the richest mud may be raised, and the lime 

 almost thrown upon it from the kilns, where- 

 by a compost of incalculable value may be 

 formed to any extent. The owner of this fine 

 farm has adopted a mode of savinsf his rail- 

 fence in a time of freshet — to which the river 

 is subject, and by which the low meadows 

 are periodically dressed to a considerable 

 depth — that is new to me, and deserves men- 

 tion. The posts are set fifteen feet apart, 

 well spurred at the bottom and firmly fixed : 

 then, the butt-ends of the rails are joined two 

 together by a piece of chain fixed with sta- 

 ples, the middle link of each chain being fast- 

 ened at the proper height, to the post, by a 

 very strong staple ; and so each pair are fixed 

 to the posts at the proper heights. The small 

 ends of these rails are then supported at their 

 proper heights on the next post by plu^s, 

 which are driven in a slanting direction, on 

 which they rest, so slanting that the rails 

 will not slip from them by the pressure of 

 cattle, but when operated upon by a flood, 

 they rise on the top of the water and slip ofl; 

 when they are prevented from passing down 

 the stream by the chain and staple on the 

 other post; so they lie at their length on the 

 top of the water, permitting the ice, &c., to 

 pass ; after which they are replaced in an in- 

 stant. Such a contrivance, I calculate, de- 

 serves a patent. 



In surveying this noble establishment, I 

 could see nothing wanting, but another open- 

 ing to the quarry ; the one now in use was, 

 no doubt, made many years ago, when farm- 

 ers were not permitted to read or think, or 

 theorize upon their business; and so it has 

 been driven into the face of the rock, instead 

 of at the back, and many thousand hours of 

 worse than useless labour must have been 

 expended on boring and blasting a rock, which, 

 if it had been approached from the back, would 

 have opened with the bar, with, comparative- 

 ly, the ease of opening the leaves of a book. 

 But times are now changed, and any man, 

 having a few years' lease in the quarry, would 

 find it to his interest to drive a new opening 

 at the back, and work from thence. 



It must be observed, Mr. Longstreth was 

 for many years successfully engaged in busi- 

 ness in Philadelphia, and has demonstrated 

 the fact, that city farmers need not be, what 

 some of our old friends suppose them, unfitted 

 for the pursuit of agriculture by their former 

 engagements; — indeed it can readily be 

 shown that many of our most intelligent and 

 euccessful husbandmen have retired from the 

 city to grace the country by their improve- 



ments and well-directed exertions, and I beg 

 leave to recommend them to the notice of 

 every intelligent and well-disposed agricul- 

 turist in the country. J. Mo. 



August 28, 1841. 



Improving Soils. 



There is a point, beyond which soils can- 

 not be permanently enriched without an im- 

 provement of their constitutional organiza- 

 tion, which however may be done by supply- 

 ing artificially those ingredients of a good soil 

 of which they are deficient, such as clay, 

 where sand is too predominant — carbonate of 

 lime, where that is deficient, &c. ; but with- 

 out this change in the constitutional organi- 

 zation of the soil, we cannot hope to carry its 

 fertility permanently, beyond what it had ac- 

 quired in a state of nature. Soils which have 

 been reduced merely by cultivation, where 

 they have not been injured by washing rains, 

 may be easily renovated, and this must be 

 done by again supplying them with those in- 

 gredients of which they have been deprived 

 by bad husbandry ; this may be done in part 

 by the application of manures, but we must 

 also look to the atmosphere, whence we are 

 to draw much of the necessary supply of 

 vegetable food, and to this end, we should 

 freely cultivate those crops which derive most 

 of their food from it ; and in soils adapted for 

 its cultivation, red clover is most suitable for 

 this purpose; it is by far the most convenient 

 and the cheapest mode of renovating exhaust- 

 ed soils, not only supplying much vegetable 

 matter to soils that have been much reduced, 

 but it is admirably calculated to pulverize 

 and reduce its component parts to a finely 

 divided state, and thus to produce a condition 

 flivourable to a combination with those ele- 

 mentary principles which are furnished by the 

 atmosphere, greatly increasing its capacity 

 for absorbing moisture, care being taken to 

 suffer as few weeds to ripen their seeds as 

 possible; these, previous to the time of ripen- 

 ing their seeds, derive much of their nutri- 

 ment from the atmosphere, and by destroying 

 them before they seed, their product in vege- 

 table matter goes to renovate that soil upon 

 which they have been grown ; and exhausting 

 grain-crops should be sparingly cultivated 

 until the soil is become perfectly renovated, 

 and even then, they should bear only such a 

 proportion to the green crops as the soil will 

 bear without deterioration. — Beatty. 



Agriculture is the true foundation of 

 wealth ; the sea renders her tribute, but the 

 earth presents to skill and industry richer, 

 and infinitely varied contributions; — money 

 is not wealth. 



