No. 3. 



Top-Dressing. 



85 



ance, and the next day was very lame, (I 

 suppose slightly foundered,) and their food 

 was again reduced to five pounds each per 

 day until the 20th, when (Patience having 

 recovered) it was gradually increased, so as 

 to give each one fifty-two pounds of corn in 

 the ten days, when they were weighed, and 

 the following is the result. 



Mr. Taylor's black Berkshire, Belinda, gained 21 lbs. 

 Dr. IHartln's Woburn, Patience, gained 21 " 



Dr. Martin's Woburn, Courtenay, gained 30 " 



James Weathers, Jr. 

 Clarke Co., Ky., Aug. 23, 1841. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Top-Dressing. 



Mr. Editor, — I have a few choice plants 

 in pots which I nurse with a parent's solici- 

 tude, for I raised them from infancy, and 

 their education and state of health form with 

 me a business of much importance. Two of 

 them are geraniums, twins, cut from the pa- 

 rent stalk and planted at the same time in 

 different pots; one of these has always flour- 

 ished and looked healthily : the other, although 

 it has made some progress, has ever had a 

 sickly appearance, and would sometimes die 

 back and again shoot forth, as though it were 

 affected with the chills and fever. An arti- 

 cle in the Cabinet, where it is said, " all the 

 trees in a cherry-orchard in Kent died, when 

 the roots had reached to a bed of dung that 

 had been buried, with a view of strengthen- 

 ing their growth," first directed my attention 

 to the state of the earth in my geranium pot, 

 and on turning out the plant, I found that the 

 lower part of it consisted almost entirely of 

 unmixed dung— and there was the secret. I 

 immediately reversed the order of things, 

 placing common mould at the bottom of the 

 pot and rotten dung on the surface, and from 

 that time the plant has flourished like its 

 twin, and is now as green and healthy. 



Now, in my mind, this very trifling cir- 

 cumstance teaches a great lesson in agricul- 

 ture, and if I had the means, I would follow 

 it out; but alas! I am but a business-man in 

 Third street, dried up to a button by close 

 confinement this hot weather, with my plants 

 in a court-yard 25 feet square — my only 

 plantation in the world — but I take the Cabi- 

 net, and read its pages witli much interest 

 and increasing pleasure, and my leisure hours 

 are occupied in storing up lessons, to be put 

 in practice when the time arrives that I shall 

 be able to leave all and follow my strong pro- 

 pensity — the cultivation of the earth, and the 

 rearing of stock. This is the extent of ray 

 wi^h, and I indulge in the hope, for 



" Where is the man, 

 However wretched or however poor. 

 That will not feed his mind with hope of bliss 

 And happiness, reserv'd for him to prove I" 



And in view of the experiment above re- 

 lated, I would venture to ask of your intelli- 

 gent practical readers, what would be the 

 result, if the system of heavy top-dressing 

 were to be adopted upon principle, on land 

 confessedly poor, but with a healthy subsoil, 

 neither too wet nor too dry 1 My opinion is, 

 if such soils were ploughed a very moderate 

 depth, and afterwards subsoiled — that is, 

 stirred in the furrow to a considerable depth 

 but without turning it over, that absolute 

 fertility could be communicated most easily 

 and profitably by top-dressing : for I am 

 friendly to the theory put forth in the Cabi- 

 net, " that the tap-roots of plants are main- 

 ly occupied in sending water from below, 

 while their lateral roots are feeding on the 

 pabulum contained in the surface earth ;" 

 that pabulum, however, consisting of matter 

 in solution only, carried down to them by the 

 rains. So the grit of the thing is this, if I 

 may be allowed to startle our practical friends 

 with a system so "outre" — it appears to me 

 quite possible that, on some not distant day, 

 it will be found that what are now termed 

 poor soils, will become, by subsoiling and 

 top-dressing, equal to the rich — the system 

 of renovation being neither very expensive or 

 laborious. And I am strongly inclined to be- 

 lieve that the different grains can be raised 

 on such soils by superior cultivation of a far 

 better quality than those grown on deep and 

 rich lands, which are too often relied upon 

 for a heavy return, rather than upon clean 

 and superior cultivation. And to this opinion 

 I have arrived, from a careful examination of 

 the different samples of grain which I every 

 year collect, forming of them a sort of cabi- 

 net, when I almost always find that the finest 

 sample has been raised upon the best culti- 

 vated soil, without much regard to its native 

 richness; nay, that some of the very best 

 samples have been raised by dint of superior 

 cultivation on comparatively the poorest soils. 



It amounts then to this — in all probability 

 the time is not distant when poor soils, within 

 reach of the means of top-dressing, will be 

 found of far more value than the richest, out 

 of the reach of markets — top-dressing supply- 

 ing all that is required for the production of 

 the most valuable crops, even on poor and 

 sterile soils, provided the subsoil be healthy. 



Agros. 



Philadelphia, Sept. 1, 1841. 



To declare that you have an implacable 

 enemy, is sometimes to confess that there is 

 one human being towards whom you have 

 not done all that the rule of charity requires. 



In a well-ordered state, every member of 

 the social body is useful, but the most useful 

 are the most honourable. 



