CETIi c .farmer's iHontljIij ilisitor. 



53 



account of the increased leakiness of the soil, 

 would more than counterbalance the advantage 

 which is received from the increased moisture 

 tliiti may lie derivi >l from the lower earth. 



" When at perfect I isure, have the goodness 

 to give me your views in regard to lliis aspect of 

 the matter." 



In anticipation of facts and reasoning upon 

 our position, we give it ;is the opinion that all 

 soils in nil seasons, wet or dry, will derive advantage 

 in cultivation from deeper ploughing or stirring of 



the earth. Our principal reason for this opinion 

 is not embraced in the abstract from either of the 



three points na 'I by our old friend— it is not 



either the. looseness of the earth or its aptitude 

 t>> receive and retain or reject moisture, that 

 give to the suhsoil its advantage— it is the min- 

 eral qualities, which acting both us nutriment and 

 stimulant to the growing plant by thesnbsoiling, 

 renders this the least expensive and indeed only 

 effectual method of renovating worn-out lands. 

 How is it, thai lands a long time ago tired, worn 

 out ami abandoned, after a series ofyears spring- 

 ing into a growth first of saplings, then of trees, 

 when afterwards cleared and burned, become 

 renovated? The secret of the matter probably 

 is this: the trees coming up take deeper root in 

 the ground below the common vegetable pro- 

 duction ; the roots extract by a chymieal process 

 the mineral manures from the rocks and the 

 gravel or sand or directly convert these substan- 

 ces into manures— they work into rich black 

 mould sometimes the surface and crevices ofthe 

 hard rock of which they seize hold — they con- 

 trive, by some wonderful process, not only to 

 convert the potass and other mineral matters of 

 the earth into the substance of growing wood 

 afterwards round in its ashes, at the same time 

 they throw out these mineral manures into the 

 leaves which, falling annually upon the ground, 

 in a i'rw years when the land is again opened 

 leave the barren sterile forest converted into a 

 field of fertility. It is thus that nature is contin- 

 ually restoring what man destroys upon the sur- 

 face. 



Again, our respected correspondent will ex- 

 cuse us for our incredulity in the belief that any 

 thing below the surface of the strength of stimu- 

 lating manures is carried off by leakage, except 

 it shall be washed away upon an under surface. 

 The light lands, it is true, seem not to retain the 

 effects of stimulating manures so long as the 

 more tenacious clayey soil : the reason, as we 

 view it, is not that the soil leaches downward, 

 but that the sun and heat having a greater effect 

 upon it sooner lake into the atmosphere t lie 



at onia necessary for the action of that soil. 



Our opinion that the lightest soil does not leach 

 downward to any injurious extent was formed 

 some five years ago. A considerable portion of 

 that land now embracing a village of valuable 

 edifices and buildings at the Concord railroad 

 depot was a hill mainly consisting of a bed of 

 dry and loose, but generally line yellow sand. 

 Some of it bad been cultivated by the plough for 

 perhaps a hundred years: it was generally well 

 manured, but had never been ploughed much to 

 exceed the depth of live or six inches. In the 

 course of a rotation of crops when Indian corn 

 was planted on this ground we always observed 

 that the blades came out of the ground quick 

 and looked remarkably well — there seemed to be 

 enough strength of soil, but the beat and drought 

 of a few days in July or August would soon 

 cause the leaves to curl, so that in no very long 

 time the prospect of making ears seemed to be 

 out of the question. When this field came to be 



excavated, just so deep as the ploughshare had 



been accustomed to go — not to turn up, (that for- 

 sooth would he poisonous) the pure yellow sand 

 below— the black vegetable mould of this earth 

 had formed: below it in horizontal strata, as 

 perfect as any tenacious clay bed was laid the 

 pure sand as easily to be moved from its com- 

 pactness as any softest sand bank: not a particle 

 of the manures often laid upon the surface, on 

 the must critical examination, could be seen as 

 having made its way below where tin; superficial 

 plough had reached. Now our belief and honest 

 conviction is that in any soil, light or heavy, above 

 where, the water habitually remains will be ben- 

 efitted by stirring and atmospheric action with 

 frost and wet to the depth of at least twenty 

 inches, and that the loosest gravel or sand alter 

 it has had the benefit of exposure for one year 

 or more may be safely intermixed as au ingre- 

 dient of increased fertility with the surface 

 mould. 



A field upon a hill of sand may be rescued 

 from sterility by deep ploughing ami the appli- 

 cation of stimulants: we are not certain that the 

 action of clover roots alone upon a deep plough- 

 ed sterile sand hill may not bring it up to a point 

 of fertility that shall give thirty to fifty bushels of 

 corn to the acre with the aid simply of a bushel 

 of the mineral manure called plaster of Paris. 



The intervales along the beds of our rivers are 

 made up of soils of different kinds. Where the 

 freshets gradually back in, a rich clay mould is 

 gradually formed in layers equal to that brought 

 on in any one freshet. This coming from the 

 detritus of the rocky formation of the moun- 

 tains above makes a soil at once exceedingly fer- 

 tile in the production ofthe grasses: tin- (day 

 intermixed with a large portion of sand coming 

 from limestone or any other more recent than 

 the primitive rock, makes the most productive 

 Indian corn land ; ami of this is the whole region 

 ofthe Connecticut nvcrvalley. The Merrimack, 

 coming out of more primeval granite mountains, 

 presents a low intervale of less fertile elements. 

 But the intervales upon all rivers are the most 

 productive, most enduring lands, because they 

 come from the sediment brought down by 

 the waters, chymically prepared by " nature's 

 canny baud" for the growth of the vege- 

 table productions most necessary for man's 

 subsistence. The mineral manures, in their 

 best due degree, are here prepared fur in- 

 stant action ; just as the mellowed summer 

 manures of the barnyard act sooner upon a field 

 of corn-blades, than the winter manure laid upon 

 the ground ere it has yet rotted the straw in 

 which it is enveloped. 



All earth possesses its due proportions neces- 

 sary to make up something of the elements of 

 fertility: land is only good or poor in proportion 

 as it is the more or less belter prepared for the 

 growth which is desired from it. We have seen 

 the sand beds upon the river hank grow upon its 

 surface deep-rooted natural intervale grasses lour 

 and Cwe. feet tall, giving foil two tons of dry hay 

 to the acre: the rools of these natural grasses, 

 deeply imbedded in the dry surface sand, suffer- 

 ed not from drought, while the smaller artificial 

 grasses, when not killed out by die scorching in- 

 fluence ofthe sun, upon the same ground, would 

 yield scarcely half a dozen cocks of hay to the 

 acre. 



Our respected correspondent will perceive that 

 this explanation of the benefits of deep plough- 

 ing will have anticipated mainly any thing we 

 might offer upon the three points of benefit 



which he supposes to be derived from deep 

 ploughing. Those who ought to know better 

 than we do are sometimes of opinion that the, 

 deeper ploughing of land will be injurious where 

 the smaller quantity of stimulating manures is 

 applied for the crop. This, in our belief, can 

 only be the case where too much of the fresh 

 subsoil is brought at once upon the surface, be- 

 fore it has had the effect of the due atmospheric 

 action. When the ground has been subsoiled 

 once, the surface plough only, used afterwards, 

 will each year bring into the surface action so 

 much and no more of the underlaying soil as 

 may be best used. It is hardly to be credited 

 that all the benefits of manure will not ultimate- 

 ly be gained on the land deepest ploughed: to 

 this always is coining the mineral manures to 

 other artificial aids. 



Farming near the Federal City—The Chief 

 of the Murines and others— The Kentucky 

 Politician a farmer at the Silver Spring. 



Persons who have resided at the city of Wash- 

 ington twenty years and contrast the improve- 

 ments in cultivation made within ten miles of the 

 city in that time — its former general sterility with 

 the many valuable vegetable and fruit fields now 

 existing — may realize something of our ideas of 

 renovating worn-out lands. On both sides of 

 the Potomac river, the change is marked and ap- 

 parent. This is a district of country that was 

 highly productive when it was first opened. The 

 commerce of Georgetown and Alexandria and 

 even of the now dilapidated town of Bladens- 

 burg up a few miles upon the Eastern branch, 

 where one hundred yeais ago, ships were load- 

 ed with tobacco, flour and corn, prove the coun- 

 try round about to have been once rich: tobacco 

 cultivation under slave labor seems to have made 

 the hind accursed. It is a red-clay soil ; and if 

 tiny external appearance could imprint upon the 

 mind the pained idea of permanent sterility, it 

 was that red-clay surface broken in upon by the 

 trickling of waters over it which seemed to leave 

 the land without capacity to produce any thing. 



Perhaps a more beautiful vista view is not to 

 be found in the world than that from the western 

 esplanade of the Capitol extending from four to 

 eight miles north, west and south over the Poto- 

 mac. Within its limit is nearly the whole ofthe 

 settled parts of Washington, with the public 

 buildings and Georgetown beyond, southeasterly 

 of which in a graceful bend runs the Potomac, 

 at the southerly view of whose waters a little to 

 the west, stands the port and city of Alexandria. 

 Of the sterility we have described was the en- 

 lire prominent high ground between the Capitol 

 and Eastern branch. Two miles out in this di- 

 rection is the Congress burial-ground, which dis- 

 tance, at the funerals of many senators and re- 

 presentatives since our first acquaintance, we 

 have often traversed out and back : down south 

 as the Eastern branch nears the Potomac is the 

 navy yard. Latterly much of the sterile ground 

 has been fenced out and converted into fields un- 

 der the plough. Neai-lhe navy yard are the bar- 

 racks of the Marine corps with the mansion 

 which for several years has been occupied by 

 the veteran officer, Gen. Handerson, at the head 

 of that corps. This gentleman, a Virginian by 

 birth who inherits among other property a splen- 

 did farm in western Virginia upon the Ohio, is 

 one of the pioneers of improvement ofthe lands 

 in the District. Taking up some of the vacant 

 lots of the United Stales, and perhaps some oth- 

 ers by rent or purchase, he has shown that this 



