THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



176 



Agriculture— itsp>ignity and Importance. 



BY GEN. DIX, or ALBANY, N. Y. 



In the countries of Europe, the quarter of the 

 globe with which our communications are most 

 direct and intimate, the state of agriculture va 

 rieswith peculiarities of soil, climate, and politi 

 cal organization ; and as might be expected, the 

 estimation in which it is held, is not every where 

 the same. In Russia the earth is cultivated al- 

 most exclusively by the serfs, subject to the arbi- 

 trary will of the noble who owns the soil. Man- 

 ual labor, in any art, almost necessarily partakes 

 of the character of those by whom it is canied 

 on, and in Russia therefore, agriculture, as an oc- 

 cupation, is degraded. In the northern parts of 

 Italy, in the Netherlands, and in some of the 

 German States, the soil under judicious systems 

 of husbandry and an elaborate culture, has at- 

 tained the highest degree of productiveness. The 

 southern part of Sweden, formerly subject to 

 Denmark, retains in some degree the reputation 

 it once enjoyed as the granary of northern Eu- 

 rope. Holsteiii, a dependency of Denmark, bor- 

 dering upon the noi-thern hanks of the Elbe, and 

 tlie shores of the German Ocean, abounds in the 

 richest fields of grain, and in numberless flocks 

 of cattle and sheep. In France, a new impulse 

 has been given to agricultural improvement, by 

 the extreme subdivision of the soil, which has 

 grown out of the law of equal succession and the 

 confiscation and sale of lands belonging to the 

 church and to the expatriated nobles, who follow- 

 ed the fortunes of the Bourbons. 



To give a country the highest degree of wealth 

 and power, which it is capable of attaining, agri- 

 culture triust be sustained by commerce and man- 

 ufactures ; but it tnay dispense with both the lat- 

 ter, and yet retain its prosperity. The condition 

 of the United States is favorable to all thpse pur- 

 suits; but whatever may be the fate of our com- 

 merce and manufactures, we must as an agricul- 

 tural country, rank among the first nations' of the 

 earth. The extent of our territory, the extraordi- 

 nary fertility of our soil, the adaptation of our 

 climate to almost every species of production, 

 our distance from other countries, in which agri- 

 culture furnishes a sur|ilus for exportation, show 

 conclusively that our vast and rapidly augtnent- 

 ing population can, and must, be sustained by the 

 fruits of our own industry. In this field of labor 

 we fear no competition. The productions of our 

 agriculture have but one limit — the demand for 

 them. Centuries must elajise before they will be 

 limited, as in the densely populated States of Eu- 

 rope, by the powers of the soil. We have not 

 only the ability of expanding to an immense de- 

 gree, by means of the Mississippi ; but we have 

 the ability of increasing to an indefinite extent 

 upon the surface we now occupy. For centuries 

 after the reaction of settlement shall be felt from 

 the West, (an event too distant to enter into any 

 estimate of our future growth,) we may continue 

 to multiply and yet be able, by a more prudent 

 husbandry of the powers of the soil, to furnish 

 the additional consumers with the necessaries of 

 life. 



Keep your Land Bry. 



The importance of draining is not duly appre- 

 ciated, nor its practice well understood among us. 

 Although water is indispensable to vegetation, 

 too much of it is as hurtful as too little. It is ne- 

 cessary to the germination of the seed, to the de- 

 composition of the vegetable matter in the soil^ 

 to the transmission of the food from the soil to 

 the plant — to its circulation there — and to the 

 maturity of the product. Ail these useful pur- 

 poses are defeated, where water remains in the 

 soil to excess — the seed rots, the vegetable mat- 

 ter which should serve as the food of the crop, 

 remains unsoluble, in consequence of the ab- 

 sence of heat and air, which the water excludes; 

 or, if the seed grows, the plant is sickly, for want 

 of its proper food, and there is consequently a 

 virtual failure in the harvest. It is not from, the 

 surface only that we. are to determine whether 

 laud is sufficiently dry to support a healthy veg- 

 etation ; but we are to examine the surface stra- 

 tum, into which the roots of the [ilants penetrate, 

 and fioni which they draw their food. If this is 

 habitually wet — if it grov.s marshy plants — if 

 water will collect in a hole sunk fifteen inches 



below the surfiice— the land is too wet for culti- 

 vated crops, and means should be adopted to ren 

 der it more dry. From my partial acquaintance 

 with this country, I feel assured that much ol 

 your best land is rendered- unfit for tillage, or the 

 growth of the fi«er grasses, by reason of the ex- 

 cess of water, which passes or reposes upon the 

 sub-soil unnoticed by the cultivator. These lands 

 are denominated cold and sour, and they truly 

 are so. Cold, sour lands are invariably wet lamls 

 below, if not upon the surface. But if the sujier- 

 fluous water were judiciously conducted by effi- 

 cient under drains, (for the construction of which 

 you possess the hest materials in abundance,) 

 these lands would be rendered warm and 

 sweet, and highly productive, and the outlay 

 would be repaid by the increased value of two 

 or three of the first crops. Wet lands are 

 generally rich lands, abounding in vegetable 

 inatters, which water has preserved from decom- 

 position, but which readily become the food of 

 plants, when the w ater is drawn off. Let me im- 

 agine a case, which I am sure will be found to 

 exist in many parts of your country. There is a 

 slope of a little hill, half a mile in extent, termi- 

 nating in a flat forty rods wide, through which a 

 brook meanders. The soil on this slope and in 

 this flat, is of alight, porous quality, six to twelve 

 inches deep, reposing on a sub-soil impervious to 

 water, as clay, rock, or hard-pan. By soil, I mean 

 the upper stratum, in which vegetable matters are 

 blended with earthy materials, and which consti- 

 tutes the true pasture of jjlants. Near the top of 

 this slope, all along on a horizontal level, or per- 

 haps lower down, spoutsor springs burst through 

 the sub-soil, a thing very common in hilly dis- 

 tricts, the waters from which finding an easy pas- 

 sage through the loose soil, s[iread and run down 

 the slope, and upon the sub-soil, and through the 

 flat, till they find their level in the brook. A ther- 

 mometer plunged down to the sub-soil, will in- 

 dicate, at midsummer, a temperature probably 

 not greater than sixty degrees, whereas to grow 

 and mature many of our best fiu-m crops, we re- 

 quire a heat in the soil of seventy or eighty de- 

 grees. How shall we remedy this evil, and ren- 

 der this land profitable to the occupant .' Simply 

 by making an underdraiu or drains, in a gently 

 inclining direction ; a little below those spouts or 

 springs, and, if practicable, somewhat into the 

 sub-soil. These will catch and conduct off the 

 spouting waters, and by laying the lower plane 

 dry and permeable to heat and air, develope all 

 its natural powers of fertility. 



I will suppose another case — that of a flat sur- 

 face, underlaid by an impervious sub-soil. This 

 is rendered unproductive or difficult to manage, 

 by stagnant waters. The rain and snow waters, 

 penetrating the soil, are arrested in their down- 

 ward passage, by the sub-soil, which not having 

 slope to pass them oft; they remain, and stagnate, 

 and putrefy, alike prejudicial to vegetable and 

 animal health. The mode of draining such 

 grounds and rendering them productive and eaey 

 of management, is, first to surround the field with 

 a good underdraiu, and to construct a sufficient 

 open drain from the outlay to carry off the wa- 

 ters. Then with the plough, throw the land in- 

 to ridges of twenty to thirty feet in breadth, ac- 

 cording to the tenacity of the soil, in the direction 

 of the slope, and sink an underdraiu in each of 

 the furrows between the ridges, terminating them 

 in the lower cross drain. The materials of the 

 uiiderdiain, which are generally stones, should 

 be laid so low as to admit of the free jiassage of 

 the plough over them. The superfluous waters, 

 by the laws of gravitation, settle into these drains, 

 and pass oft', and the soil becomes dry, managea- 

 ble and productive. An acquaintance called up- 

 on a Scotch farmer whose farm had been under- 

 drained in this way, and being informed that the 

 improvement costs sixteen dollars an acre, tile 

 having been used, remarked that it was a costly 

 improvement. "Yes," was the farmer's reply: 

 but it cost a deal mair not to do i7," which he il- 

 lustrated by pointing to an adjpining farm, like 

 situated, which had not been drained, and was 

 overgrown with rushes and scdgegrass, and then 

 to his own fields teeming with luxuriance and 



;h in the indications of an abundant harvest. 



I have dwelt upon the subject of draining with 

 more detail, because I have personally realized its 

 benefits, and am sure it may be extensively gone 

 into with certain prospect of reward. — J. Buel. 



From the Farmer's Journal. 

 Marl— Mud— Muck. 



The present season has been a remarkably dry 

 one in this region,leaving dry and accessible near- 

 ly all the swamps and marshes in thevicinity, and 

 our farmers have been improving every spare hour 

 in ditching,draining, and carting out muck on their 

 uplands and they have made many very valuable 

 discoveriesjbeside the first object ofdraining. Capt. 

 Win. Hall of Hanover, while ditching a low mea- 

 dow of about 10 acres on his farm the present sea- 

 son has discovered an immense bed ofmarl,e.\tend 

 ing nearly over the whole meadow and reaching 

 froin three to ten feet in depth. It appears to be 

 a mixture of clay and lime with a large propor- 

 tion of vegetable matter Some of it, when throw- 

 ing it out in a wet state, is soft, and cuts like curd 

 or butter, and when partly dried, is elastic and will 

 bend like india rubber, and when perfectly dried 

 it is nearly white. Other portions of it are hard- 

 er and darker colored, with more clay, and all of 

 it when dry, effervesces freely, on the application 

 of acids. He has hauled out about 100 loads on 

 to his upland for experiment. It will, no doubt, 

 prove a valuable manure and will probably add 

 to the value of his farm 5 or $600. The mea- 

 dow alluded to has heretofore been considered 

 worth but little, being frequently covered with 

 water, and no one mistrusted it contained so rich 

 a bed of marl. 



There are, no doubt, himdreds of farms in the 

 upper part of this State and Vermont, on which 

 may bo found as rich beds of marl as this, and if 

 not marl, on almost every farm can be found a 

 bed of muck, which with a suitable mixture of 

 lime may be made worth as much as marl, or if 

 farmers would fill up their barn or hog yards 

 with it, and cart it out in the spring, they would 

 find it wonh as much as stable manure. At the 

 suggestion and advice of Dr. Jackson, who. has 

 lately been making a geological survey of the 

 State of New Hampshire, last spring a number 

 of our farmers tried the experiment of mixing a 

 quantity of lime wirii muck and applying it to 

 corn and other crops, and the general" result is 

 that the effects are as good as stable manure. — 

 Let farmers improve on this information. Many 

 a poor, sterile farm has enough of this material, 

 well managed, to make one of the most rich and 

 productive pieces of land in the world. Then in 

 such a dry season as the past has been, why not 

 look around in your long neglected swamjis aud 

 hog yards and mud holes and sound them out, 

 and haul them out, on to your dry land,|put it in- 

 to a heap, throwing on about a half bushel of 

 lime to a cart-load, and I will guarantee you will 

 make more than to hunt for gold or lead mines. 

 Just try it. 



Marl may he known by the most ordinary ob- 

 server. Every farmer or farmer's boy may read- 

 ily distinguish it. The clay marl is generally 

 of a gray or bluish color, sometimes reddish, and 

 when dried it frequently is light colored in pro- 

 portion to the quantity of lime or calcareous earth 

 it contains, which is generally a test of its value, 

 and on the application of acids, or even sharp 

 vinegar, it will effervesce or boil up. This is 

 the operation of the acid upon the lime. 



The value of marl above barn yard manure on 

 land, especially for a top dressing, is very obvi- 

 ous. You are exposed from fighting a crop of 

 weeds all summer, that would be brought on in 

 the yard manure, and the marl will last at least 

 four times as long. Sillman's Journal says a good 

 dressing of marl will last fiom 12 to 20 years. 

 It has long been used in some of the elder parts 

 of the country to verv great advantage. 



J. PINNEO, Jr. 



Hanover, N. II. Oct. 19, 1841. 



Prof. Liebig is a strenuous advocate for a ro- 

 tation of crops, and his reasons are based on the 

 theory of Decandolk, which he considers as fully 

 established : " DecandoUe supposes that the roots 

 of plants imbibe soluble matter of every kind 

 from the soil, and thus necessarily absorb a num- 

 ber of substances which are not adapted to the 

 purposes of nutrition, and must suhsctpiently be 

 returned to the soil as excrements. Now as ex- 

 crements cannot be assimilated by the jdaut 

 which rejected them, the more of these matters 

 which the soil contains, the more unfertile 

 must it be for plants of the same species. These 

 excrcmentitious matters may, however, gtill be 



