110 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



and it can not therefore be regarded as a reliable 

 expounder of the rai/onaZe of agricultural practices; 

 yet it contains the observations of an accurate and 

 scientific experuuenter, and is well worthy of care- 

 ful study. LiEBiG has indeed recently sneered at 

 the " empyricism of Thaee;" but since the failure 

 of the pet mineral manure theory of the great Ger- 

 man chemist, the writings ot such practical men as 

 TiiAEB are attracting, as they deserve, more atten- 

 tion. Thaer was born in Hanover, in the year 

 1752; studied as a physician, and became eminent 

 in his profession. He married in 1786, bought "a 

 small house and a large garden," and soon became 

 celebrated as a horticulturist. He studied the best 

 works on agriculture, purchased new land, imported 

 the best English agricultural implements, and intro- 

 duced the culture of clover, cabbage, carrots, etc., 

 in conjunction wdth stall-feeding, and soon made 

 his little farm the admiration of his numerous visi- 

 tors. He made an agricultural tour through Eng- 

 land, France, Denmark, and Germany. His treatise 

 on British and German Husbandry, which a])peared 

 shortly afterwards, added to his reputation. The 

 King of Prussia induced him to establish an agri- 

 ciiltural school on a farm near Berlin. Here he 

 made many valuable experiments, and ultimately 

 brought his farm, which was naturally a poor one, 

 to the highest state of fertility. He was even more 

 successful in his efforts to improve the quality of tlie 

 Avool of his flock of sheep. He was the editor of 

 an agricultural paper, wrote a great many useful 

 books, and died, crowned with honors, in the year 

 1828. The writings of such a man command atten- 

 tion. His Principles of Practical Agriculture is 

 his best work. His directions, on account of the 

 Sees .dissimilarity in the climate, can be followed by 

 American farmers with more safety than those of 

 any Eiiglish writer. It is, on the whole, a work 

 which we can most cordially recommend to all intel- 

 ligent American farmers. 



TO BB CONTII^tTBD. 



Hat Caps akd Stack Coveks. — "G.," of Lee 

 county, 111., asks for imtbrniation about "Stack 

 Covers." A writer in the Jiew Enghmd Farmer, 

 wh© has used cotton cloth "hay cajis" for several 

 years, says that painting or oiling it is of no use — 

 that they wili «hed raiii just as well witliout it. 

 For covering coeks of hay, and sjiocks of wheat or 

 oats, or stooks of corn, he would have cloth "four 

 feet wide, torn into squares, witli a loop in each 

 corner, and four small sticks about twenty inches 

 long — one to hold each corner." For stacks they 

 would need to be of larger size, and this would 

 require two or three breadths sown together, with 

 several loops on each side. B. — Niag. Co.^ N. Y. 



Ik wet weather, the necks of working oxen are 

 apt to become sore. To prevent this, rub a little 

 tallow on thd voke aad bows. 



IMPROVEMENT OF IMPOVERISHED LAND. 



FrtiExn Harkis: — Waiving for the present the 

 further discussion of analytical chemistry applied 

 to the study of soils, allow me to congratulate your 

 readers on receiving the very instructive article on 

 " Natural and Artificial Drainage," which forms the 

 leader in the February number of the Farmer^ and 

 to present for their consideration a few remarks on 

 the improvement of impoverished land. 



Mr. Edward Billixgslet, of Zanesville, lllinofs, 

 says, in your last issue, that "the system of farm- 

 ing at the West has hitherto been an exhausting 

 one, as though the fertility of the soil would last 

 forever." He also' calls attention to the fact that, 

 while summer-fallows answer an excellent purpose 

 on the clay lands of Europe, they are not adapted 

 to the sandy, black mold, of this country ; and bo 

 might have added, that our hot, tropical, and semi- 

 tropical summers, over a large part of the United 

 States, are not congenial to any large amount of 

 plowing, or other tillage. Where the summer heat 

 is much less, as in Great Britain, and the aggregate 

 of sunshine not only less, but feebler while it lasts, 

 it requires at least twice as much tillage to decom- 

 jiose vegetable mold, and decompound earthy min- 

 erals, as is needed in this simny clime. The most 

 prominent and injurious error in American agricul- 

 ture is the universal practice of going over too much 

 surface with the plow. Nature never uses the plow, 

 nor any other thing of like influence, in forming a 

 rich mold, or in making a soil that abounds in all 

 the earthy part of our most valuable crops. If a 

 farmer turns over his manure heaps several timea 

 duj-ing tlie spring, summer, and autumn, and per- 

 mits rain and sunshine to fall upon them, the organife 

 matter will rapidly ferment, rot, and dissolve, and 

 disappear; and in a few years, the manure, if thus 

 treated, will be dissipated. The stirring of the soil 

 by the implements of tillage, increases the growth 

 of plants mainly because it intensifies those chemical 

 actions which dissolve their food. After the food of 

 plants is dissolved from the disintegration of mold 

 and minerals by plowing and hoeing, the law of 

 general distribution diftuses these elements of fer- 

 tility as far and wide as moving water and moving 

 atmosphere will carry them. If there were no natu- 

 ral agencies for the universal diffusion of plants over 

 islands and continents, and, consequently, for th« 

 equal diffusion of their appropriate aliment, then 

 there could be no waste, locally, from the decom- 

 position of manure, and no loss of fertility by plow- 

 ing alone. But when one transforms his manur« 

 into gases and soluble salts, he must be careful, or 

 no inconsiderable share of these will be carried, in 

 ever-moving air and water, beyond his premises. 

 It is the diffusion of the organic elements accumu- 

 lated in swamps and rich prairies that poisons tha 

 atmosphere for human respiration in the immediata 

 vicinity, and causes malarious diseases. The result* 

 of the first breaking of large prairies illustrate not 

 alone local phenomena, but the operation of natuFal 

 laws that equally extend over the whole globe. 



Of all the animals that subsist on the fruits of th« 

 earth, man alone tills it, and he alone impoverislu.!* 

 the land that supports him. 



To avoid the needless dissipation and consump- 

 tion of fertility in all virgin soils, and in all others, 

 it is important not to cultivate more land than is 

 eti'ictly required to meet the real wants of the cuM- 



