PROFITS OF THE FARMER. MANURES, &C. 151 



exposed to all weathers, from day to day, and so deposited, when it can be done, 

 on hill-sides and precipices, as if it were the express intention that the bounteous 

 rains of heaven, designed to fertilize and replenish the earth, should here be im- 

 piously availed of to extract and wash away what every good farmer as fondly 

 regards as the miser does his gold. In view of such improvidence, I could almost 

 find it in my heart to respond approvingly to the sentiment expressed lately at a 

 Farmers' Club, that willingly to let a pint of manure run off from a farm, ought 

 by law to be made a punishable offence against the Commonwealth. 



How vvridcly difl'erent, Sir, is such management from that described in your 

 Journal where you detail an account of a visit to Mr. Hall, near Lebanon in 

 !New-York. From his farm, consisting of only 200 acres — 20 in wood and 180 

 arable, 50 each year under the plow and the residue in grass — he, it seems, sells 

 4,000 pounds of butter and 15,000 pounds of pork, his hogs averaging 290 pounds. 

 But he makes, be it noted, 150 co?-rfs of rich manure from his hogs, and 200 from 

 his " teams and cows." His force, besides being a " whole team " in himself, is 

 but two men through the year, and one for eight months — his usual number of 

 Gows at the pail being 22. But lest the reader may suppose that instances drawn 

 from the North are altogether inapplicable to the South, let me avail myself of 

 the reasoning of a native-born son of the Old Dominion, as precisely applicable 

 to all those in that State who think it not essential to make manure ; for it 

 would really seem to be impossible that those in the region to which I am refer- 

 ring who persist in wearing out their lands by crops of grain without the appli- 

 cation of stable manure, and barn-yard manure, and intervening grass crops, can 

 have read a chain of reasoning, as conclusive as mathematical demonstration, 

 contained in an Address — one of the ablest in the agricultural annals of any coun- 

 try — delivered by Frakklin Minor, Esq., before the Agricultural Society of 

 Albemarle, 1st of November, 1846. Sure am I that all your readers will thank 

 me for suspending my own crude suggestions, while I extract from that admira- 

 ble performance what is so exactly apposite to the subject in hand. I am not 

 sure that Mr. Minor embraces in his estimate the cost of transportation of the 

 grain to market, though it is presumed he rates the corn and wheat at its actual 

 money value to the farmer, whether at home or abroad. It will be observed, 

 however, that he puts down the average of wheat at 8, and of corn at 25 bushels 

 to the acre — which m.ay be fair as for the general run of unimproved land in 

 Albemarle, but is undoubtedly one bushel too much wheat and five too much of 

 corn for Fauquier, Culpeper and Ptappahannock, and about two or three only 

 below the average of wheat in the Valley of Shenandoah, and about right as to 

 their produce in corn. I crave for the following extract from Mr. Minor's Ad- 

 dress the earnest attention of every reader of your journal ; or if the father who 

 does not like to have his eyes opened to a view of his ruinous old system (pre- 

 ferring to remain in ignorance of the catastrophe to which it is leading him,) 

 will not read it himself, let him have at least the kindness to hand it to those 

 who are being reared under his care, and whom he would like to see embark in 

 their profession with something like an estimate of what it demands of thought 

 and forecast, as an intellectual and profitable occupation. He who would not 

 believe in reasoning like that embraced m this extract, would not believe St. Paul 

 himself, though he were to rise from the dead. 



" But even in the absence of all experience, both foreign and domestic, on this subject, is 

 not the profit of improving land susceptible of conclusive demonstration by calculation — by 

 figures whicli, you liiiow, cannot lie ? I shall endeavor to show that it is from the foUow- 

 ing data, which I believe to be as nearly correct as tlie nature of the case admits of: 



"1. That by bestowing greater attention and more labor on the accumulation of the ma- 

 terials for making manure, and by having better fixtures for saving it and preventing its 

 waste, we can increase the quantity of manure we annually make at an expense which wiU 

 not exceed one dollar for every additional wagon-loacl so made and delivered on tlie land. 



" 2. That land which will bring five barrels of corn per acre witliout any manure, will 

 bring eight if manured at the rate of twenty wagon-loads to the acre ; that the same land 

 will bring eight busliels of wheat after the corn without the manure, and fifteen after the 

 com with manure ; and that if seeded with clqver after the manure and plastered, it will 

 yield one and a halfUma of liay to the acre. ^ 



" 3d. That such laud cultivated without mantu-e for twelve years in corn and wheat alter- 

 nately, and having all the otfiil of the crops restored to it, may perhaps retain its fertility but 

 cannot improve ; and that the same land manui'cd once at the rate before mentioned, and 



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