EXPERIMENTS IN CULTIVATION AND MANURES. 533 



Since that time, always — and we may say habitually — holdinjj in hijjh com- 

 parative estimation the beauty and the usefulness of lives and labors thus de- 

 voted to peaceful and meliorating pursuits, we have been anxious, in a sense 

 of duty, and for the good of Society, (least of all for his own sake) to pay to the 

 proprietor the very inadequate homage which here we render. 



For the painting from which the engraving has been made, we are indebted 

 to the artist, Mr. Marchant of this City, in whose collection it still remains— a 

 true presentment of the estimable original, as far as Art can supply one. The 

 engraving, as will be seen, is by Mr. Jackman, and does him credit as a worker 

 in that, one of the finest among the Fine Arts. 



EXPERIMENTS IN CULTIVATION AND MANURES. 



THICK AND THIN SOWING DRILL AND BROADCAST HUSBANDRY EFFECT OP 



CERTAIN MANURES ALL COMPARED. 



The English agricultural journals are throwing a vast flood of light on prac- 

 tical Agriculture, and we endeavor to give the brightest of it applicable to the 

 United States. The fact is that the condition of English Agriculture is such as 

 to compel the most skillful application of the greatest force both of talent and 

 capital, that can be brought to bear upon it. Hence it invokes and commands 

 the services of the ablest men in the Kingdom — men most versed in all the laws 

 of Nature that apply to agricultural production. But these men, with equal 

 judgment and good sense, all demand from the practical farmer a full knowl- 

 edge of reliable facts ; and to these they apply the principles of Science, and 

 draw deductions on which the practical farmer may thenceforth rely and proceed. 

 Such is the present state of Agriculture in Europe, and such the harmonious co- 

 operation of Theory and Practice. Men in the field, making exact observations, 

 and giving their facts ; and men in the closet, reflecting on these facts the light 

 of the torch of Science, and illustrating, to the apprehension of the plainest un- 

 derstanding, how and why it must be so and could not be otherwise — and by what 

 means other and more propitious results may be obtained, where those have 

 been heretofore unprofitable and disastrous to the hopes of the farmer. For ex- 

 ample : the Farmer tells the man of Science — ♦' On such a piece of land I had a 

 heavy crop of roots, or grass, while on one very near, and richer, I had nothing 

 worth cutting or storing." On inquiry, the man of Science finds that one piece 

 of land drained itself, and retained no surplus moisture ; while the other re- 

 mained all the time more or less wet. Well, then he explains to the Farmer 

 how water is a bad conductor of heat, while air is a good one ; that if he will 

 try he will find many degrees of difference in the temperature of the two pieces 

 of land ; and that if he will drain the wet piece, and draw off the particles of 

 water that fill up the pores between the particles of earth, and let in air in place 

 of them, it (the air) will at once convey manure to, or rather itself manure, the 

 roots, and raise and improve the temperature of the land. The Farmer, how- 

 ever plain, can understand this. He drains the land according to the rules and 

 with materials — all of wliich have been exhibited here in The Farmers' Li- 

 brary—and the next year he gets from his too moist land an additional crop that 



(1013) 



