218 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



and Mr. Elias Whitney. The former is well 

 known in IloUiston and Millbrd, and was for- 

 merly a boot manufacturer. The latter is one 

 of the overseers of the poor, and a special po- 

 licemen of Milford. If the statements of these 

 gentlemen are of any value, Mr. H.'s com- 

 pound is a siirre'^s — private opinions to the con- 

 tray, notwithstanding. I have no personal in- 

 terest in it, farther than its effects on my farm 

 are concerned. Let us give it a thorough trial, 

 and report the result. I wish to say a few 

 words in regard to the comparative fertili- 

 ty of the soils of different localities, to which 

 allusion was made in the Farmeu for the 18th 

 of January. 



I take standard scientific men for my au- 

 thority. 



The inorganic elements of all soils are com- 

 posed of disintegrated rock. The surface 

 mould is formed by the accumulation of de- 

 cayed organic substance. Its prime advan- 

 tages seem to be mechanical, such as the re- 

 suits of the former appropriation of its miner- 

 als, which have thus been reduced to a pecu- 

 liar state of fineness and solubility, and ren- 

 dered more immediately fit for plant nutriment. 

 Also its absorptive and retentive powers, &c. 

 This organic matter is of very slow formation ; 

 but In particular localities as on the prairies, 

 it has washed to a great depth, and is the ac- 

 cumulation of ages, — perhaps of a length of 

 time as great as that in which, a>ccording to 

 Prof. Agassiz, the minute coral Polyps were 

 at work, forming the whole Peninsula of Flori- 

 da. I have forgotten, but it must have been 

 a great many thousand years. 

 ' Dr. Nichols says, in his Cliemistry of the 

 Farm and Sea, that the pure granite is the 

 parent rock of all ; containing all the elements 

 of all other rocks, which vary from that in 

 their lack of certain of its elements. So it ap- 

 pears that a soil formed of pure granite is per- 

 fect in its supply of all the elements of inor- 

 ganic plant food. While soils formed from 

 imperfect rock are lacking in some of these 

 elements, but may contain a large proportion 

 of alkalies and other valuable fertilizing sub- 

 stances of great manurial value. Nearly all 

 limestone Is of animal origin, and was pro- 

 duced from the ^vaters of the sea, where its 

 vast accumulations were once held in solution ; 

 while marble seems to have been made up from 

 the relics of these minute creatures still appa- 

 rent to the eye, by aid of the microscope, even 

 in their stony combination. 



Asking pardon for the undue space I have 

 unintentionally occupied, I will close with an 

 allusion to the theory of Agassiz, concerning 

 the formation of our agricultural soils. North 

 of thirty-^ix degrees he says, from the At- 

 lantic to the Pacific, it Is mostly of foreign 

 origin. Instead of being composed of portions 

 of the original surface ro;k, the materials of 

 which it was maile were brouglitdown from the 

 North, embedded in the glaciers of the drift 

 period, all this region having been covered with 



vast fields of ice. These facts account for the 

 difference between the loose boulders of our 

 surface soils, and the original surface rock be- 



Massachusetts, Feb. 1, 1868. 



For the Xew England Farmer. 

 ENGLISH FARMING- ON RENTED 

 GROUND. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 



In looking over some of the back numbers 

 of the New England Farmeij, while sitting 

 alone this evening, I thought I would drive 

 dull care away l)y writing to the young farmer 

 who inquires for the practical experience of 

 older Hirmers in paying for farms which they 

 bought by running in debt .for one-half or two- 

 thirds of the purchase money. 



I will now bring before your notice two 

 farmers with whom I was particularly acquaint- 

 ed, to show you how one succeeded and the 

 other failed, both of them upon one farm in 

 England. 



The one that succeeded commenced farm- 

 ing with the money saved from the wages of 

 himself and wife, both being farm servants, 

 without any education. 



The amount of their savings was about £24:0 

 sterling, or $1200. This man hired a farm 

 of three hundred acres of land, and had to 

 keep eight horses to work the farm and men in 

 proportion, it being a grain farm. He never 

 had a horse worth more than fortj or fifty dol- 

 lars. He paid something like twenty-five shil- 

 lings ($6) per acre rent, besides taxes. 

 This man lived to the good old age of 

 ninety years ; brought up a family of five 

 children, four boys and one girl, all ot 

 whom worked hard while young. He gave to 

 his daughter, at different times, somewhere in 

 the neighborhood of sixteen hundred pounds 

 sterling, ($8000) and bought a small farm for 

 each of the boys, and paid the last mortgage 

 for the same six.years before he died, besides 

 starting two of the boys upon rented farms 

 previous to buying. One of these failed and 

 was started again upon one of the farms that 

 he had bought. The fourth boy went to Lon- 

 don to be a merchant, but on commencing 

 business for himself soon failed. He was then 

 started by his father upon a small farm that he 

 had bought. The old gentleman was a good 

 farmer, a good moral citizen and well respect- 

 ed. When he lost his wife he retired from 

 farming and lived with one of his grandaugh- 

 ters, whom he had brought up. 



The other farmer who succeeded him on 

 this place was a young man, full of health and 

 vigor, whose father was comfortably off in the 

 world, and who started him with eight large 

 fat horses, good wagons, carts, tools, and in- 

 deed everything that such a farm requires. 

 This young man boasted that he would show 

 them how. to farm; saying that the land had 

 not been managed as it ought to be, &c., &c. 



