VOL. XX. NO. T. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



51 



;, not to a propensity to nltcrnatP, but to that strug- 

 ■te which nature is continually making- to destroy 



'■iiy artificial crops, ami it seems to me that the 



*pditor must in candor ascribe it to the same. 



But if the editor will favor me with a visit, I 

 will Bhon- him an argument much more in point, 



*ind much stronger in force, tlian the one he hag 

 jdduced. Last -'^printj I planted my corn about the 

 isual time, perhaps a little earlier, and during all 

 Its early stages cultivated it ivell. But for the last 

 Four weeks we have had an almost constant euc- 

 :ession of cloudy weather, attended with frequent 

 showers of rain, some of which have been very 

 heavy. The consequence i.-;, that our plows, culti- 

 vators, and hoes, have been almost entirely banish- 

 ed from the field, and the whole field, from the 

 excess of grass and weeds, presents at this time the 



■imost mortilying aspect. But what can bo the rca- 



Ison of this ? ' Oh, I can tell,' says the editor, ' and 

 I cite Mr Turner as my evidence to prove it: the 

 land is tired of tiie corn, and therefore seeks to 

 'alternate it.' What! tired in three short months? 

 Or is it not, as I stated, that nature with her crop 

 of grass and weeds, is seeking to destroy my crop 

 ofart, andhas taken advantage of the unusually 

 wet season to effect her purpose ? 



But it was stated some time ago, that nature's 

 great and favorite crop was the forest tree. In- 

 deed the chief and prominent object of nature seems 

 to be to cover the whole face ot the earth with her 

 trees. She has them of the greatest variety, and 

 she plants and nurtures them in every practi- 

 cable situation. Some grow even in tlie water, 

 and I have seen them growing also on the hard 

 rock, where there was but a scant supply of soil to 

 sustain them. Indeed I think it not improbable, 

 visionary as it may appear, that large .sections of 

 land in the Valley of Virginia, now covered with 

 forests of immense trees, were once nothing but a 

 naked limestone rock. IIow else can we account 

 for the remarkable shallowness of the soiK' Now 

 I do not say that nature planted her trees originally 

 on tlic naked rock. She was too skilli'ul a mana- 

 ger for such a blunder as that. But, in the first 

 instanic, she planted what could and actually did 

 grow there, viz : mosses and lichens. With these, 

 using the lime to decompose them, she first formed 

 a little thin soil. Here was a beginning. After- 

 wards she probably employed grasses, first of the 

 lower and then of the higher orders. After this, 

 shrubs, &c., until, in the long lapse cf time, she 

 accumulated soil enough for her favorite crop, the 

 forest tree, and then she planted it. And now she 

 has the crop to which all her efforts were directed 

 from the very beginning. 



Now here I have supposed an extreme case : 

 from no soil at all, there has been soil enough 

 formed to sustain the forest tree. In bringing 

 about this result, great changes have taken place, 

 the moss has yielded to the grass; the grass to the 

 shrub, and the shrub to the forest tree. And do 

 not these chani^es prove rotation? Not at all. 

 On the other hand, I fearlessly affirm, that not one 

 of these changes was made for any of the purposes 

 of rotaticm ; but they are all to be regarded merely 

 aud solely as so many preparatory steps towards 

 nature's final crop. You might as well tell me 

 that plowing, harrowing, maimring and planting 

 are so many rotations, as that the preparatory mea- 

 sures adopted by nature, with reference to her crop, 

 are so many rotations. Nature, it is true, has no 

 stable nor farm-pen to furnish manure. Nor has 

 she a plow, or hoe, or spade, with which to prepare 



her lands. But till she has her own resources, de- 

 caying vegetation, and the frosts of winter, and 



these she employs in the untiring manner, until she 

 brings her lands into the proper state to receive 

 her crop, and then she plants it. All the grada- 

 tions, however, from one material to another, in the 

 mean time, are not to be regarded as so many rota- 

 tions, but simply as so many links in the great 

 chain of preparation. 



We will now suppose that the great business of 

 preparation is at last completed, and that nature's 

 grand crop, the crop in which she seems to take 

 special delight, the forest tree, is actually planted. 

 The question is, does she ever change it.' The 

 editor aftirms, but I deny ; and thus we are directly 

 at issue. But the editor demands — when the for- 

 est of oak has been removed, and another forest 

 grows up, is not the latter different from the former ? 

 True I but whose work is this ? Is it nature's ? 

 Did nature destroy her own forest of oak ? Or 

 rather, did not man destroy it? Here man came 

 in, and interfered with nature in her steady opera- 

 tions. He violently took away the crop in which 

 nature glories, and he substituted his own artificial 

 crop, a crop that nature abominates in the place 

 of it. This crop he constantly appropriated, year 

 after year, to his own use, returning nothing to the 

 land which produced it, until fertility is destroyed 

 and positive impoverishment has been fixed upon 

 it. In this state, he gives the land back again to 

 nature. And how does nature manage it now ? 

 Does she put the same crop on it as before ? By 

 no means. She has too much skill for this : but 

 finding the land in a very different situation, she 

 varies the crop according to the different circum- 

 stances in which she finds it, wisely adapting her 

 crop to the present impoverished situation oi the 

 land. The change, therefore, from the hard wood 

 to the soft, is not properly an alternation — it is 

 merely a change brought about by the peculiarity 

 of the case. If I have a piece of land so poor that 

 it will not produce turnips, and I plant peas there, 

 is this nn alternation ? No one will pretend that 

 it is. No more can that be regarded as an alterna- 

 tion, when nature, finding that her land will not 

 produce tlie former crop, plants a different one on it. 



Having now disposed of the case on which the 

 editor seems to rely with so much confidence, I 

 go a step further and say, that nature unviolated, 

 but let alone in her own free course, never alter- 

 nates her crops. Go to some sequestered spot 

 where man has never been, if such a spot can be 

 found, and where violence of no other kind, by 

 tempest, by flood, nor by fire, has ever been inflict- 

 ed, and the forest which was of oak a thousand 

 years ago, is a forest of oak still. I insist upon it, 

 that no instance can be adduced, in which nature, 

 left to her own free course, has been known to al- 

 ternate an oak for a pine, or a pine for an oak. 

 Such changes do constantly occur where man has 

 been at work, but then the handy work of man has 

 been the cause of it. 



Furthermore, if the editor will favor me with a 

 visit, (I am too busy at this time to visit him,) I 

 will 'show him, what it seems is a strange sight in 

 his section of country, and that is not one young 

 oak, hiil great multiudes of them, growing from the 

 decaying stumps of the parent tree, ond nourished 

 by what I call the humus of the same. It seems 

 that no such thing ever occurs in the editor's coun- 

 try ; but there, when a tree dies in the natural way, 

 or is uprooted by the storm, or destroyed by fire or 

 inundation, it is succeeded by a tree of different 



order. Even the long-leafed pine, or the short- 

 leafed pine is succeeded by the old-field pine — a 

 tree of different order. Now here, I assure the 

 editor thai [ witness ihn /net as stated above, and I 

 venture to assert that it will bo found to exist in a 

 great many other places. Changes of this charac- 

 ter, I admit, do often take place, but rarely, if ever, 

 except where a change has been cfiected in the 

 condition of the land. Let the land remain the 

 same, and leave nature to work in her own way, 

 and the forest, which is her main and final crop, 

 will remain the same. If under these circumstan- 

 ces the oak dies, another oak will spring up from 

 the stump to supply its place. 



* * It is notorious that the aspen is remarka- 

 ble for covering the whole space occupied by its 

 roots with a multitude of young aspens. But I 

 shall bo told, these all proceed from the roots. I 

 know it ; but I ask, in my turn — why do not these 

 roots so exhaust the peculiar ingredients fitted 

 for the tree, as to render the land incapable of rear- 

 ing the same? If in case the aspen were removed, 

 would a pine make its appearance ? 



But / am exhausted, though my subject is not. I 

 must, however, say something about the admirable 

 economy of nature in compassing her main object. 

 I have elsewhere stated that nature has but one 

 want, and that is rich lands. All her efforts seem 

 to tend to this one point. She abhors the idea that 

 there should be a barren or unproductive spot in 

 any part of her vast farm. We have seen that she 

 will even take the naked rock, and first clothe it 

 with verdure, and then plant the grand forest tree 

 there. And how does she effect this ? It is simply 

 by husbanding all her resources, and then, with an 

 admirable skill, turning them to the best account. 

 Nature never wastes any thing. Not a weed, not 

 a leaf, nor even a bit of moss is thrown away by 

 her. In her /)ro(/«c(io?i*, also, we see this wonder- 

 ful skill displayed. She produces but little Jruit, 

 for she has no use for it. Whilst this is the case, 

 it is wonderful what a multitude of berries orna- 

 nent the plants, the shrubs and the small trees of 

 nature. For these she has a use, and that ii to 

 feed the immense number of her beautiful birds. 

 But man can gather ten times as much fruit from 

 one of his small trees, as can be gathered from one 

 of nature's huge oaks. But if nature be deficient 

 in the production of fruit, she is by no means de- 

 ficient in providing the means by which she may 

 enrich her lands. If, therefore, the oak produce 

 but few acorns, it produces a large crop of leaves : 

 acorns also often fail, but leaves never. 



The above may perhaps be regarded as mere 

 fancy. Not so. I have a distinct object in stating 

 it, and that is to illustrate further what ( have said 

 about that deadly warfare which nature is carrying 

 on upon the cultivation of man. She regards the 

 whole world as her property. She claims every 

 acre, every inch of the land as her own. Her 

 main, her constant object — an object which she has 

 puisued for thouj.ir..'..j of years with the moct un- 

 tiring perseverance, is to make every foot of the 

 land rich. This she does by taking off nothing, 

 but restoring the whole product, weeds, grass, 

 leaves, to the land. Now the very tendency and 

 policy of .'cultivation is to defeat nature in this her 

 favorite object, and this, in my opinion, is the cause 

 of that deadly grudge which she owes to man." 



Wheat was selling at Rochester recently at 

 cents per bushel. 



