16^ 



Progression in Farming. 



Vol. XI. 



rant of any of the facilities of betterinjr the 

 condition of mankind; as their fathers did, 

 so do they." — American Farmer. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Progression in Farming. 



To THE Editor, — We do not perhaps 

 hear so much said now-a-days against book 

 farming, as we did a few years ago. I am 

 inclined to think, however, that we yet 

 hardly appreciate to their full extent, the 

 labours of the enquirer into agricultural 

 science. If we would save labour — and 

 who has more need to do that in his opera^ 

 tions than the farmer? — we must avail our- 

 selves of all the light which the experience, 

 and even the speculations of others, can 

 throw upon the means of accomplishing our 

 object. There is so much good sense in the 

 following remarks, which I find in the T^eio 

 York Journal of Commerce, that I conclude 

 the readers of the Cabinet may not altoge 

 ther escape profit by looking them over. It 

 is therefore that I send them. O. 



"Farming, like all other things, and per 

 haps nfiore than other things, is in a revolu 

 tion. We once knew as much about groW' 

 ing corn, potatoes, and grass, as our farming 

 neighbours; but we have glanced at enough 

 of the science in its modern improvements, 

 to feel that all we knew is of very little 

 worth, and that in attempting to write about 

 farming now, we are more likely to get 

 laughed at than admired. But no matter, 

 farming has become a science. If a farmer 

 wishes to grow wheat on his land, he sends 

 wheat to a chemist to be analyzed, that he 

 may find of what it is composed, or rather 

 looks into some modern work on chemistry, 

 and reads it there. He then sends a sample 

 of earth from his lot to the chemist, to as- 

 certain of what ingredients the soil is com- 

 posed; and whatever of the component parts 

 suited for wheat is not found in it, he pro- 

 cures and spreads upon his land. A field 

 may have in abundance all the ingredients 

 for the production of wheat but one, and yet 

 not be able to produce wheat. By science, 

 the Grahams have discovered the appalling 

 fact, that butter and beef are in the grass 

 and the fruits; that the cow is only the 

 manufacturer; and that she, like the trans- 

 muting priest, abjures butter and beef, and 

 yet eats butter and beef all the while. The 

 farmer who has no science, will perhaps, at 

 great cost, add those ingredients of which 

 there are already enough ; but that will not 

 cause a crop to grow. This accounts for 

 the fact which is often so surprising, that 



manure which has produced great crops on 

 one soil, has no good efl'ect at all on another. 

 A scientific farmer knows little oi poor land. 

 All land is good to him, for it will produce 

 well if only furnished with the proper in- 

 gredients. So land that would only produce 

 a very poor crop, has been made to produce 

 a very large crop, by spreading upon it one 

 or two deficient ingredients. These ingre- 

 dients are, some of them, to be found in al- 

 most all substances: lime of oyster shells, 

 ashes even of anthracite coal, charcoal dust, 

 fish, bones, &c. Everything is composed of 

 ingredients which must be had for the repro- 

 duction of itself, and many other things. 

 Fruit trees cease to bear often, because they 

 have exhausted the soil of one or two of the 

 ingredients which compose their fruit. Give 

 them but these, and they will at once return 

 to production. A pear tree may grow in a 

 soil which has not all the qualities necessary 

 to constitute pears, and it can no more make 

 pears without the necessary ingredients, 

 than the Israelites could make bricks with- 

 out straw. One crop exhausts one set of in- 

 gredients, and another to some extent a dif- 

 ferent set; and so farmers learn the fact 

 without knowing the cause perhaps, that 

 the same crop should not be grown for suc- 

 cessive years on the same land. Yet there 

 is no difficulty in growing the same crop in- 

 terminably, if only the exhausted ingredi- 

 ents are supplied. 



" A great deal has been learned about the 

 mode and time of cutting and curing hay 

 and grain. Grass, which while lying out to 

 be thoroughly dried, perhaps may get re- 

 peatedly wet, makes much better hay if, 

 with much less drying, it is preserved with 

 a bushel of salt to a ton. Salt is often 

 cheaper than hay, so that the farmer makes 

 a profit by putting it in, while the labour of 

 curing is much diminished, and the good 

 qualities of the hay much increased. Wheat 

 cut in the milk has been found to weigh 

 more pounds to the bushel than when left to 

 ripen to the usual time, and oats were still 

 more increased in weight. So farmers have 

 perhaps been suffering great loss for ages, 

 by cutting their grain at too late a stage of 

 its progress. 



"The application of science to agriculture 

 has developed wonders in the capabilities of 

 the ground, which have lain froin the crea- 

 tion unobserved. Men are astonished when 

 they see what boundless blessings the Crea- 

 tor has spread thick around, and how slow 

 the race has been in observing them. They 

 have spent century after century in shedding 

 each other's blood, in creating and spreading 

 poisonous superstitions, and in every possible 

 way destroying all that was good. Despis- 



