414 



THEXJENESEE FARMER 



December 31. 1831 



central point, under the authority of'liis name 

 where they should be collated, arranged and 

 published, in such form and manner as 

 should be deemed advisable. Such a body 

 of facts, deduced from the practice of our 

 most intelligent farmers, and sold so as 

 merely to cover the expense of publication, 

 would be invaluable. Besides, new products 

 are continually coming into culture among 

 us. The culture of cotton which now con- 

 stitutes an article of greater value than any 

 other of our exports, is of but recent origin 

 in the south. The production of silk, and 

 the manufacture of wine from our indige- 

 nous grapes, promise to become great branch- 

 es of national industry, and sources of indi- 

 vidual wealth. The dissemination of cor- 

 rect practical information upon these subjects 

 might be greatly facilitated. The progress 

 of our manufactures is also suggesting new 

 objects of culture, and new stimuli to agri- 

 cultural enterprise. Madder, woad and weld 

 are articles of prime necessity in the thing 

 and coloring of ourcotton and woollen goods; \ 

 and they are all susceptible of being profita- 

 bly, produced from our soil. The demand 

 for' them is already extensive, and must in- 

 crease for years to come. The value of the] 

 madder alone, imported last year I have 

 been credibly informed, exceeds one million 

 of dollars. 



This would add no contemptible item to 

 our agricultural products. How important 

 is it then, that we should be in the early pos- 

 session of all the information necessary to 

 its culture and management, and to enable 

 tisto form an estimate of the product and 

 profit of the nop. Our forests, too, are rap- 

 idly giving way to the increase of population. 

 In many distiicts. destitute of stone, resort 

 must ere long be had to substitute for dead, 

 fences. We have much to learn, and mnchj 

 more to practice, in regard to the nature, ap- 

 plication and economy of manures. 



From Uie \<>w Vnrrk Farmer. 



THE COUNTRY FARMER— NO. XIII. 



On the choice of suitable Land for Farming. 



Mr. Flf.et — The coldness, of some land, 

 with excess of water, on which certain binds 

 of trees, adapted to such circumstances, 

 will still grow to enormous stature, preserves 

 their cast-off leaves from decay, the accu- 

 mulation of which forms black muck, that 

 deceptive covering of the soil, already noti- 

 ced : or rather of the surface, for such lands 

 on a close examination, hardly ever have a- 

 ny soil, strictly speaking, or only in patches, 

 in a few places. The sub-soil, is almost in- 

 variably hard-pan, or clay, neither, of which 



settlers of regions of mucky lands, the whole 

 order of valuation is reversed, as above des- 

 cribed ; and that which, at the first settle- 

 ment of the country, was esteemed only as 

 the third or fourth quality of land, comes to 

 be, by general consent, considered the very 

 best, the first quality. If we now seek an 

 explanation of this, the ready answer, is; 

 warm and dry soils afford crops much more 

 certainly, being less affected by extremes of 

 all sorts, as of excess of rain, of drought. 

 heat and cold ; may be worked earlier in 

 spring, and later in autumn : heave less, by- 

 winter freezing; and the crops are much 

 less liable to injury by early and late frosts. 

 Take the sum of all these into amount, and 



are penetrated by the roots of the trees, i it amounts to a very great difference. But. 



which run upon their surface, as they would 

 upon that of a rock. It is a good plan, in 

 selecting a lot of wild la'nd for a future 

 Farm, to examine the roots of such tn es as 

 have been blown down by the winds, with the 

 ground adhering to their roots. On mucky 

 lands, these will generally be found, on ex- 

 amining what was the under side, while 

 standing, as fiat as a pan-cake. See, also, 

 if the roots, of the standing trees, are afraid 

 of the ground, extending off horizontally, 

 or whether they stretch downward, deeply 

 buried in the soil, as roots should be. 



On warm lands, the dry gravel, the 4th 

 quality, in new countries, and the 1st in old, 

 or on a. I warm and dry soils.there is so much 

 warmth, that the leaves are soon putrefied. 



besides all this, warm soils are sensitive to 

 the kind treatment, to the care and skill of 

 the Husbandman; and cold anil wet ones, 

 are not. Mother Earth, like all other La- 

 dies, loves a little assiduity of attention, and 

 rarely bestows her bounties without some 

 coaxing. Warm soils invite this, but cold 

 ground repels all such advances. Hence it 

 is, that, as men, Husbandmen, love to be in 

 this humor of coaxing, so a warm soil, by in- 

 viting it, makes gootl Husbandry, and is the 

 better taken care of, when made fertile, for 

 having been, in good part, made so, by the 

 assiduity of the cultivator. They who re- 

 side on land of the greatest natural richness, 

 even if fertile, or not, rarely use much of 

 this kind of assiduity, rarely are good Farm- 



perfectly rotted, forming, at first, vegetable !]ers, or grow fat by Farming, fal as Farmers, 

 mold, then soil, or earth, with more or less that is, rich in purse, and in mind. Men of 



the 



business of draining, and in other important 

 branches of labor, essential to neat and profi- 

 table husbandry. Nor is a knowledge of] 

 the fruits and vegetables which are daily bro't 

 to our tables, and which make up a large! 

 portion of our food, and of improved modes 

 of culture, of trivial account. The condi-i 

 tion of our gardens has not only a great 

 bearing upon our health and comfort, but is 

 no bad indication of our intellectual taste 

 and refinement. Upon all these subjects of 

 labor and taste, the result of the observations 

 and experience of the members could not 

 fail to be of great public benefit. 



I have thusendeavored to point out some 

 of the benefits which might accrue from the 

 labors of a state suciety, devoted to the im- 

 provement of Agriculture and Horticulture. 

 Whether these benefits will ensue, I pretend 

 not to judge. It will depend much upon the 

 liberality and public spirit of those who en- 

 gage in it. And it ought to be premised, that 

 noonesnoukl b ■ a member from an 



idea of mercen . gain: for I suspect there 

 will be neither premiums, salaries noi stock 

 to speculate upon. The only reward ex- 

 pected must be, the new facilities to useful 

 knowledge which it premises, connected with 

 a consciousness (one of the noblest feelings 

 that dignities our uatnre) of laboring to ad- 

 vance the happiness of man. And 1 ardent- 

 ly hope, that enough may be found, upon 

 these terms, to organize the association at 

 the time and place designated. B. 



Albany, Dec. 1831. 



of vegetable remains. Hence there can be 

 no carpeting of muck, but a real soil, cover- 

 ing the sub-soil, occupying the surface. In 

 walking ovei such giound. you never tread 

 on the horizontally extended roots, for they 

 lie deep, exactly the reverse of their position 

 in inuckv land; and the trees torn up by the 

 roots, leave a deep pit underneath, from 

 which the roots have brought up the soil, in 

 this case. When such land is cleared of its 

 trees, you may see the furrows close to the 

 stumps, even so as to tear off the bark with 

 the land side of the plough It is always a 



this cast, who increase in substance by Far- 

 Iming, and live as Farmers should, are found 

 on this 4th quality of land, now become the 

 first, in all parts of the northern and western 

 states, whatever may be the case with the re- 

 gions of cotton, rice, and the sugar cane. 



The richest Farmers, then, are not on tin 

 poorest land, but on such as, in all newly 

 settled countries, had been thought such. — 

 Farming wealth, has thus been made to 

 change hands : and the industrious, hard la- 

 boring, and economical Husbandman, lias 

 succeeded to the enjoyment of what was in- 



very bad symptom to find the roots naked, as, ticipated, and meant to be secured, by those 



if afraid of the ground, but this never hap 

 pens on any but cold and wetland, except on 

 solid rock. Young Farmers, themselves in- 

 experienced, would do well to consider the 

 roots, as giving more indications of the qual- 

 ities of tin- land, and that the trees, as to their 

 size, and often as to their kinds, afford little 

 by which to form a correct judgment. The 

 groves of the sugar maple, beech, and hem- 

 lock, in the northern part of the United 

 States, are, except on some sandy river allu- 

 vions, confined to cold and wet mucky lands; 

 while on the Ohio, the beech and maple 

 groves are often found on the very warmest 

 soil, the roots all hidden, and deeply buried. 

 Such is the case, also, with other kinds of 

 trees, affecting widely different soils in dif- 

 ferent dim lies, and countries, in which the 

 altitude has more concern than mere latitude. 

 The white beech, of the north, is a very dif- 

 ferent tree, however, from the red beech of 

 the Ohio valley, that always preferring a 

 cold and wet loeation, and this generally a 

 warm and dry one, where muck is rarely 

 found. 



Such, Mr. Editor, is a general outline of 

 the result of my observation and experi- 

 ence, on the selection of suitable lands for 

 Farming. By the time of the second gen- 

 eration, and often dining the lives of the first 



who had secured the first choice. They call 

 it the ' cream of the country,' but it has tur- 

 ned out sour milk, or even loppered butter- 

 milk. Ttavel wherever we may, among the 

 Farmers of the Northern and Western 

 states, or in the Canadas, through settle- 

 ments of 30, 40, 50, to 100 or more years 

 old; from Canada to N. Carolina, along 

 the Atlantic, or the regions of the gnat 

 Lakes, or through the Ohio Valley, embra- 

 cing its thousand tributaries, and the truth 

 of these remarks will be confirmed at every 

 step. If such be the case, the vast import- 

 ance of the subject proportioned to the ex- 

 tent of the field and to the number of par- 

 sons interested, may well excuse a rather 

 prolonged discussion. It is often a hard 

 matter to correct a single error, or to reme- 

 dy a single fault, of judgment, or action ; 

 and I hazard nothing in saying, that, thous- 

 ands of actual Farmers, men of good stand- 

 ing for sense, too, will be ready to acknowl- 

 edge their obligations to these summary re- 

 marks. I have known Farmers, and know 

 such, now, who have fallen into the very 

 common delusion as to black muck lands, 

 and have paid deady for it, to whom this ad- 

 vice, seasonably given, would have saved 

 many years of regret. 

 The County of Putchess, N- Y., now ac- 



