^ ' j* < - • •* — mi f ijn.i; 



86 



&lje jTarmcr's i-Hotitljto bisitor. 



acre. The next year (1847) he sowed with wheat 

 without further manuring, and laid down to 

 grass. The wheat was tall to the waist and 

 stout ; but, as might be expected as often as 

 otherwise upon ground that was not elevated, 

 the crop of grain was lessened by the rust. This 

 season such a crop of hay is growing upon this 

 ground, as is an earnest that land cleared even 

 in this expensive manner will repay the cost of 

 preparation, even should it extend to the price of 

 fifty, seventy-five and a hundred dollars the acre. 

 The two last years Gov. Steele has made a be- 

 ginning upon other land of the same kind, and 

 is bringing to the aid of the first breaking-up 

 plough, the subsoil plough, going still deeper. 



He mentions the use of the subsoil plough in 

 a case of his recommendation upon the same 

 kind of soil where we have used it over some 

 thirty-five acres ; and that is, alluvion intervale 

 or pine plains land, without a pan. A gentleman 

 had a plat of land producing no very great crop 

 of hay. The subsoil plough was used in the 

 spring over a part of this land in this manner: 

 it was suffered to run into the ground to the 

 depth of twelve or fifteen inches at the distance 

 one and' a half feet apart, the coulter of the 

 plough striking through the turf without turning it 

 over, and the share of the subsoil plough mov- 

 ing at the bottom, upraising and loosening the 

 ground at a point below the roots of the grass. 

 The effect of this operation was the doubling the 

 quantity of grass ichere the ground was moved 

 beyond the product where the plough was not used. 



Grass Culture iu Illinois* 



From conversations with fanners from differ- 

 ent localities, we infer that the culture of the 

 grasses is much more attended to, and much 

 more successful, than a few years since. Some 

 two years ago, a farmer from Knox county in- 

 formed us that his own and several adjoining 

 counties, including Warren, Peoria, Bureau, and 

 Fulton, could never succeed with grass crops; — 

 that something was the matter with the soil ; for 

 neither timothy nor clover would grow in it. 

 We regarded this idea very much like that ex- 

 pressed by many a few years ago, that " Fruit* 

 could never he grown on the prairies" — and for 

 aught we know believed by some yet. We had 

 no doubt that grass crops would succeed on the 

 lightest of our soils, when we had learned to 

 cultivate them. 



A late conversation with a gentleman well ac- 

 quainted in all those counties, confirms this be- 

 lief. He informs us that grass culture is making 

 steady progress through all that section ; and 

 that no particular difficulty attends it if properly 

 done. His practice is, to put all his manure upon 

 his grass lands, and to plough deep. He finds 

 also that the crop is wonderfully aided by giving 

 his cattle the tramping of it, at certain seasons of 

 the year, where the ground is dry. The benefits 

 ot this are similar to those secured by rolling ; — 

 and it is perhaps questionable whether the latter 

 practice would not be generally better. It is to 

 be hoped that this branch of farm culture will 

 be pushed with energy. Nothing at present will 

 so put forward western agriculture as a general 

 Btocking in grass. It will equally bear on the 

 growth of horses, beef and wool, and will en- 

 hance the value of farms beyond calculation. — 

 Prairie iarmer. 



The splendid lands of the west are 60 rich at 

 their first opening as scarcely to need either deep 

 ploughing or manure. Gentlemen from that re- 

 gion represent the rich bottom lands upon the 

 Wabash and Illinois as producing successive 

 crops of corn for a hundred consecutive years 

 with no abatement in the quantity raised. If this 

 can possibly be true, it must be either that the 

 land possesses an inherent quality of reproduc- 

 tion in a peculiar soil from the chytnical action 

 of the root of the same vegetable, or else that 



the land receives a new supply of mineral ali- 

 ment from a periodical overflow of water. We 

 found the Indian Stream land, upon the farm of 

 Clark J. Haines, Esq., of Pittsburg, N. H., at the 

 time of mowing last summer, yielding to appear- 

 ance, two tons ofherdsgrass timothy hay per acre; 

 and this yield, as he told us, was upon ground 

 which had produced hay 24 years without ma- 

 nure, or without turning over with the plough. 

 Conversing since that time with an intelligent 

 farmer of St. Albans, Vt., upon a line some hun- 

 dred miles westerly from Pittsburg, we ascertain- 

 ed the hay lands of that neighborhood equally 

 rich as those of Pittsburg in the production of 

 successive crops of grasses. The soil is of the 

 limestone character, rocks apparently of slaty 

 structure, abounding in the chocolate colored 

 loam. Is it an unnatural or forced theory that 

 the roots of the permanent grasses do the 

 work perhaps of the trees in convening the rocks 

 into the fertile aliment to these abundant crops 

 of hay ? Are not our rich mountain pastures 

 supported on the same principle— roots seeking 

 out their aliment ? It is abundantly evident that 

 the rich intervales upon the banks of rivers are 

 formed from the disintegrated rocks, which frost 

 and rain, by the sweeping of waters, are contin- 

 ally bringing down in minute particles. As suc- 

 cessive crops take away something from the 

 ground, so it is necessary that something shall 

 be restored. Different kinds of vegetation take 

 from the soil a different food ; so that the value 

 of a change or rotation of crops consists in the 

 change of phase which a different production 

 gives to the same soil. Plaster of Paris on light 

 land will bring up a crop of clover where none 

 would spring without it: clover roots in their 

 turn work that chytnical action in the soil which 

 will prepare the same laud for an increased crop 

 of corn or wheat. And we cannot doubt that 

 the grasses themselves on some soils, by the ac- 

 tion of their roots in a rocky formation, may con- 

 tinue to be reproduced for a series of years. 



The Illinois country, in which the Prairie 

 Farmer circulates, has been so few years under 

 cultivation that we are almost surprised the edi- 

 tor should regard at all either manure or deep 

 ploughing as valuable in that country, whose 

 virgin fertility upon the surface seems to have 

 left the matter of care about its preparation to 

 be of very little consequence. We did not ex- 

 pect from that quarter so soon to meet com- 

 plaints that "something was the matter with the 

 soil ; and that neither timothy nor clover would 

 grow in it." This is not, however, unnatural to 

 those who believe that there is n no part of the 

 world, ground so rich as to give a succession of 

 large cro; s upon a mere superficial stirring of the 

 surface soil ; nor yet do we believe there is any 

 ground so rich as to give continued production 

 from the supply of merely the animal manures 

 that are not charged with potass or some other 

 mineral substance, supplying the place of the 

 minerals which the previous crops have abstrac- 

 ted. Light lands, we are well satisfied, may 

 produce the glasses — the lightest sandy soils will 

 not produce so long as the heavier clay soils in 

 succession : but we are not sure that the better 

 kinds of hay and all other crops, in a quicker ro- 

 tation and more frequent changes, may not be 

 as profitably raised upon the lighter as upon the 

 heavier grounds. 



Buy the best Trees. — Every person owning 

 land, should, every year, buy a few of the choicest 

 fruit or have them grown ready to hand. 



Government Finances. 



The expenditures of the government on ac- 

 count of the war, have by no means ceased. — 

 The two loans yet to be raised for purposes al- 

 ready named, amount to thirty-two millions of 

 dollars; how much more will be wanted, is yet 

 a matter of much doubt, hut probably enough to 

 swell the amount to fitiy millions of dollars. 

 This will make the aggregate expenditures of 

 the war, and for the purchase of additional terri- 

 tory, about one hundred and fifty millions of dol- 

 lars, the bulk of which is in the shape of a pub- 

 lic debt, the interest on which will annually 

 draw large sums from the Treasury. The terri- 

 tory obtained by the treaty will require all the 

 regular army of the country for occupation and 

 prevent that reduction in the military expendi- 

 tures which a return of peace would induce us 

 to anticipate. With all these drawbacks, it is, 

 perhaps, well that peace has been secured — that 

 the horrors of war have disappeared, and that 

 we are, once again upon friendly terms with all 

 nations — that there is now no obstacle serous 

 enough to check our progress, and that our pro- 

 sperity is not likely to he checked by any restric- 

 tions upon our commercial intercourse with the 

 world at large. 



With the annual interest on our large public 

 debt, with the increased expenditures of govern- 

 ment an increase of territory produces, there 

 will, no doubt, he a surplus iu our revenue the 

 first year after the final close of the war. This 

 surplus revenue will, unless some expenditure 

 should arise not now calculated upon, create a 

 sinking fund large enough to liquidate the entire 

 public indebtedness before it reaches maturity. 

 We have not the slightest doubt that this result 

 will be realized ; and there is not another gov- 

 ernment in existence that ran pay off its debt in 

 this way. There is no other that can meet its 

 indebtedness at maturity, without contracting n 

 new loin, of equal amount, to replace the old. 

 We have already paid off* the debts of two wars, 

 and paid them, too, at a time when our resources 

 were exceedingly limited, compared with what 

 they are at this moment ; and the amount of in- 

 debtedness created by the war now drawing to a 

 close, will be much more easily liquidated than 

 either of the previous two. With all the evi- 

 dence which has from time to time been presen- 

 ted to the capitalists of Europe relative to our 

 resources, there yet appears to he the most gross 

 and unpardonable ignorance upon all matters 

 regarding the strength of the institutions of this 

 country. When they see the thrones of Europe 

 tottering to the ground— when they see tlio 

 strongest and most powerful governments in 

 Europe disappear before the power of the people, 

 like morning dew — when they know not when 

 every vestige of their property may be swept 

 away — and when they sec, amidst all these 

 changes and revolutions going on around them, 

 the United States government stands firm, and 

 all is peace, and quiet, and happiness, and pro- 

 sperity here, they must feel that there is a power 

 iu the will of the people that is immoveable: — 

 and that a government based upon that power is 

 as firm as the eternal hills. Stirh revulsions and 

 revolutions as Europe has recently experienced, 

 are sufficient to change the opinions of the most 

 prejudiced, and must turn the attention of states- 

 men and capitalists of the old world to this 

 country, more earnestly than they have hereto- 

 fore deigned to give it. — A'. Y. Herald, June 7. 



The financial articles of the Herald, full of 

 facts, are always read with interest. The synop- 

 tical method of presenting facts bearing upon 

 each other as developing the business of the 

 world in all the relations of trade and commerce 

 as well as the management of the financesfof 

 governments, was first begun by Mr. Bennett in 

 the Herald about ten years ago: Air. Keltell for 

 several years, emerging from the humble position 

 of a broker's clerk in the city of New York, was 

 the able contributor to the financial department 

 of the Herald. We knew Mr. Bennett some 

 sixteen years ago as then a correspondent and 

 writer for Maj. Noah's paper in the city of New 

 York: what he has since done in the newspaper 

 press would seem to be incredible. It would he 



