1847. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



131 



plants. Study the soil and learn how to dissolve 

 flint, and form with it a covering to the stems of 

 your wheat and other grain. 



Study the soil and understand the true value 

 of alumina, iron, lime, potash, soda, magnesia, 

 sulphur, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, 

 and hydrogen. These are the ingredients thatj 

 Providence has ordained to form the bodies of :ill 

 that lives, whether vegetable or animal. 



In a future number we shall resume the con- 

 sideration of this subject. , 



Draining Lands. 



The Mark Lane Express of a late date con- 

 tains a long bill now pending before the British 

 Parliament, designed to secure the well known 

 advantages of perfect drainage to all the tillable 

 lands in the kingdom that need it. We allude 

 to this subject because we happen to know that 

 there are many thousands of aci-es in this State, 

 whose productiveness would be largely increased 

 by the removal of surplus v/ater. We speak not 

 of swamps, but of improved lands now in tillage. 

 It is a curious fact in the history of British hus- 

 bandry, that 100 years experience in draining 

 has been necessary fully to impress on the pub- 

 lic mind the necessity of removing all standing 

 water that rises nearer than three feet to the sur- 

 face of the ground, whether in pasture, meadow, 

 or corn. It often happens in this State, and par- 

 ticularly in the western portion of it, as well as 

 in England, that where streams are very level, 

 one farmer cannot drain his low lands without 

 deepening the channel of the stream on the lands 

 of others below him. To attempt this, as our 

 laws now are, and those of England are at this 

 time, is impossible without trespass. Besides 

 this, it is unreasonable to expect one land holder 

 to drain two, three, or ten farms, on a common 

 level of low land, for the sake of making his 

 vastly more productive and healthful. To say 

 nothing of greater fertility, the increased salubri- 

 brity of the neighborhood is of itself matter of 

 sufficient importance to require the interposition 

 of law. The English bill before us creates a 

 Board of Commissioners, whose office is not un- 

 like that of our road Commissioners in laying out 

 highways for the public convenience through im- 

 proved farms. Where the natural fall is insuffi- 

 cient to take off the stagnant water, steam power 

 will be used to pump it out into rivers or the 

 ocean. Mr. Colman describes one large engine 

 that effectually drains 20,000 acres of waste moor 

 land, which now gives constant employment to 

 5000 laborers in its tillage. 



Monroe county has 281,01] acres of improved 

 land. More than ten thousand acres of this needs 

 draining. The erection of a dam by the State 



I across the Genesee river, on the very rim of the 

 basin of the Genesee Valley, has driven the wa- 



1 ter back, not over the surface, but too near the 



surface of several thousand acres of as good land 

 as the sun shines upon. That this results in cre- 

 ating much miasma, sickness, and premature 

 death, no one doubts. 



Surely, if human life and health are worth 

 anything, the wrong is one of fearful magnitude. 

 To imparl a free draft to the water that falls on 

 the broad level .surface above the Rapids, instead 

 of building a dam across the river at that point, 

 the highest edges of rocks should be blasted and 

 dug out, that the fertile lands above might escape 

 their present injury from standing, stagnant water. 



With skillful culture, and a reasonable price 

 for grain and other crops, these extensive bot- 

 toms would yield as much nett profit as is now 

 realized from all the water power in this city. — 

 Rely upon it, the amount of injury that annually 

 accrues in this county alone, from under-surfaoe 

 water that remains too long below the soil, is not 

 one-tenth part appreciated. This excess of mois- 

 ture rises by capilliary attraction, and arrests the 

 salutary decomposition of the organic and miner- 

 al substances, on which all cultivated plants de- 

 pend for their due nourishment. The constant 

 evaporation of this water, as every body knows, 

 consumes much sensible heat, and keeps the 

 ground cold and unproductive. Experience, 

 (the true test,) has demonstrated that, the grass 

 and herbage which grows un half drained land in 

 England, v/ill not make so much nor so good but- 

 ter and cheese, as may be obtained from the same 

 surface, after thorough draining. An acid soil 

 and .sour plants are not the things on which to 

 make fat beef and mutton. Many a farmer knows 

 this. Considering hov/ much we all depend on 

 the prosperity of agriculture, it is a standing 

 mystery to us that so little is done to improve 

 the soil in New York. Think of it, in more 

 than two-thirds of the towns in the Empire State, 

 our rural population is diminishing ! In no part 

 of the world is the science of agriculture more 

 cordially and generally despised. It is now 26 

 years since Judge Buel began his efforts in the 

 Legislature to induce it to establish at least one 

 agricultural school. These have been kept up 

 from that day to this. A report was made a few 

 days since by a committee in the House, against 

 an application to aid a little in starting a school 

 of this kind near the city of New York, under 

 the charge of the American Institute. This re- 

 port seems to imply that to give a few dollars for 

 an agricultural school, is not merely a waste of 

 money ; but an intimation that both the soil and 

 its cultivators can be improved in the State of 

 New York ! Thousands believe this a libel on 

 their skill and intelligence. 



Assuming that the laws of nature which 

 control the production of cultivated plants are 

 sufficiently understood by* the tillers of the 

 earth, farme-rs in the Legislature are ready 

 to vote tens of thousands a year to teach 

 young men "to speak Greek, as natural a^ 



