334 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JULT 



Third, That as many of these inorganic sub- 

 stance? — the potash, soda, &c., — are readily solu- 

 ble in ivatei-, the liquid manure of the farmyard, 

 so often allowed to run to waste, must carry with 

 it to the rivers much of the saline matter that 

 ought to bo returned to the laud. 



Fourth, If the rains also arc allowed to run 

 over and wash the surface of tlie soil, they will 

 gradually deprive it of those soluble Sivline sub- 

 stances which appear to be so necessary to the 

 growth of plants. Hence one important benefit 

 of a system of drainage so perfect as to allow the 

 rains to sink into the soil where they fall, and thus 

 to carry down, instead of away, what they natu- 

 rally dissolve. 



And, lasthj, That the utility, and often indis- 

 pensable necessity, of certain artificial manures — 

 though, in some districts, perhaps arising from the 

 natural poverty of the land in some of the miner- 

 al substances which plants require — is most fre- 

 quently owing to a want of acquaintance with 

 the facts above stated, and to the long-continued 

 neglect and waste which has been the natural con- 

 sequence. 



In certain districts, the soil and subsoil contain 

 within themselves an almost unfailing supply of 

 some of these inorganic or mineral substances, so 

 that the waste of them is long in being felt ; in 

 others, again, the land contains less, and therefore 

 becomes sooner exhausted. This latter class of 

 soils requires a more careful, and usually a more 

 expensive mode of cultivation than the first ; Ijut 

 both will become at length alike unproductive, if 

 that which is yearly taken from tlie soil is not in 

 some form or other restored to it. 



One thing is of essential importance to be re- 

 membered by the practical farmer — that the de- 

 terioration of land is often an exceedingly slow- 

 process. In the hands of successive generations, 

 a field may so imperceptibly become less valuable, 

 that a century may elapse before the change prove 

 such as to make a sensiWe diminution in the val- 

 ued rental. Such slow changefe, however, have 

 been seldom recorded ; and hence the practical man 

 is occasionally led to despise the clearest theoreti- 

 cal principles, because he has not happened to see 

 them verified in his own limited experience ; and 

 to neglect, therefore, the suggestions and the wise 

 precautions which tlieso principles lay before him. 



The special agricultural history of known tracts 

 of land of different qualities, showing how they 

 had been cropped and tilled, and the average 

 produce in graio, hay, and stock every five years, 

 during an entire century, \\'ould afford invalua- 

 ])\'i materials both to theoretical and to pi-actical 

 agriculture. 



General illustrations of this sure though slow 

 decay may be met with in the agricultural history 

 of almost every country. In none, perhaps, are 

 they more sti-iking than in the older slave States 

 of North America. Maryland, Virginia and 

 North Carolina — once rich and fertile — by a long- 

 continued system of forced and exhausting culture, 

 have become unproductive in many places, and 

 vast tracts have been abandoned to apparently 

 hopeless sterility. Such 1 mds it is possible to re- 

 claim, but at what an expense of time, labor, ma- 

 nure, and skilful management ! It is to bo hop>ed 

 that the newer States will not thus sacrifice their 

 future power and prospects to present and tern 

 porary wealth— that tlie fine lands of Ohio, Ken- 



tucky, and the Prairie states, which noAV j'icld 

 Indian corn and wheat, crop after crop, without 

 intermission and without manure, will not be so 

 cropped till their strength and substance is gone, 

 but that a ])etter conducted and more skilful hus- 

 bandry will continue, icithout diminishivg the 'pre- 

 sent, crops, to secure a permanent fertility to that 

 naturally rich and productive country. 



PR.\CTICAL DEDUCTIONS TO HE DR.\W^\ FROM A KNOWL- 

 EDGE OF THE INORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF PLANTS. 



Several important practical deductions are to be 

 drawn from what has been stated in regard to the 

 inorganic constituents of plants. 



1°. Why one crop may grow ivcH lehcre another 

 fails. — Suppose, for example, a crop to require a 

 peculiarly large supply of potash — it may grow 

 well if the soil abound in potash ; but if the soil 

 be deficient in potash and abound in lime, tlien 

 this crop may scarcely grow at all upon it, while 

 another crop to which lime is especially necessary 

 may grow luxuriantly. 



2°. ^yhy mixed crops grow well together. — If 

 two crops of unlike kinds be sown together, their 

 roots suck in the inerganic substances in different 

 proportions — the one more potash and phosphoric 

 acid perhaps — the otiier more lime, magnesia, or 

 silica. They thus interfei-e less with each other 

 than plants of the same kind do — which require 

 the same kinds of food in nearly the same propor- 

 tions. 



Or the two kinds of crop grow with different 

 degrees of rapidity, or at different periods of the 

 year ; and thus, while the roots of the one are 

 busy drawing in supjilies of inorganic nourisliment, 

 tho>sc of the other are comparatively idle ; and 

 thus the soil is able abundantly to supply the 

 wants of each as its time of need arrives. 



3'^. Why the same crop grows better on the same 

 soil after long intervals. — If each crop demands 

 special substances, or these substances in quanti- 

 ties peculiar to itself, or in some peculiar state of 

 combination, the chances that the soil will be able 

 to supplj' them are greater, the more distant the 

 intervals at which the same crop is grown upon 

 it. Other crops do not demand the same sub- 

 stances, 'or in the same proportions ; and thvis they 

 may gradually accumulate on the soil till it be- 

 comes especially favorable to the particular crop 

 we wish to grow\ 



4^. Why a rotation crop is necessary. — Suppose 

 tlie soil'to contain a certain average supply of 

 all tlioso inorganic substances which plants require 

 and that the same corn crop is grown upon it for 

 a long series of j'cars — this crop will carry off 

 some of these sul)stances in larger proportion than 

 others, so that year by year the quantity of those 

 which are thus chiefly carried off will become rela- 

 tively less. Thus at length the soil, for want of 

 these special substances, will become unablo to 

 bear a corn crop at all, though it may still con- 

 tain a large store of the other inorganic substan- 

 ces wliich the corn crop does not specially exhaust. 

 Suppose bean or turnip crops raised in like man- 

 ner for a succession of years, they would exhaust 

 the soil of a different set of substances till it be- 

 came unable to grow them profitably, though still 

 rich perhaps in those things which the corn crop 

 especially demands. 



But grow these crops alternately, then the one 

 crop will draAv especially upon one class of sub- 



