10 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Jan. 



THE STUDY OF AGRICULTITRE. 



The commencement of a new year is a capital time 

 for every young farmer to begin tlie systematic study 

 of his profession. No matter how thoroughly he 

 fancies that he has already investigated all the phe- 

 nomena of tillage, the growth of crops, and the feed- 

 ing and improvement of domestic animals; in each 

 of these departments there are many important 

 truths which he and all others have yet to learn. No 

 person of common understanding ever sought ear- 

 nestly after useful knowledge, who did not gain some- 

 thing truly valuable for his labor. The rewards of 

 study, when directed to noble objects, and good pur- 

 poses, are certain. Successful agriculture, by which 

 mankind are both fed and clothed, and the land made 

 better, from year to year, is the basis of all social, all 

 moral, and all intellectual improvement. Pursue the 

 opposite course,deteriorate the soil, and you inevitably 

 compel the whole community to give more and more 

 labor for their daily food and necessary clothing. — 

 You force them to separate farther and farther from 

 each other's habitation, and ultimately to devote the 

 time of all to the one pursuit of supplying the first 

 wants of their common nature. The cultivation of 

 a badly exhausted soil exclusively, from which much 

 is needed by society, and little obtained, must check 

 all progress in learning, tcience and the arts, by 

 compelling every human being to give a great deal 

 of the " sweat of his face," for a mere subsistance. 

 We repeat the idea, that an improving system of til- 

 lage and farm economy, is- the only true basis of all 

 human elevation. The soundness of this position 

 being conceded, it follows as a legitimate corollary, 

 that agriculture conducted in obedience to the laws 

 of nature, is the great hope of the world — the par- 

 amount interest of all of woman born. 



It is not, then, to remove the tedium of an idle 

 hour that one should study the natural laws which 

 govern the results of rural industry. There is a 

 higher purpose to be attained, a far nobler object near 

 at hand, and within the reach of every studious mind. 

 The laws which God has appointed to regulate the 

 growth of plants and animals on the surface of the 

 globe, can only be wisely interpreted, by the careful 

 analysis of all known facts which relate to the organ- 

 ization and disorganization of these living beings. 



These facts and the things to which they belong, 

 must be critically examined separately, and in all 

 their natural relations one to another. It is an 

 intimate knowledge of all the known things and 

 known facts that pertain to agriculture, whicli makes 

 one a scientific farmer. This knowledge comes not 

 by intuition. It is the rich recompense of experience 

 guided by sound reason and mental labor. Not only 

 the muscles, but the mind of man must make an 

 effort before it is possible to develop the natural pow- 

 ers with which its Creator has endowed it. The 

 awaking of sleeping thought, the encouragement of 

 young reason to exert its faculties and apply them to 

 the patient investigation of natural phenomena, as 

 they really present themselves in all farming opera- 

 tions, are the ends aimed at by much of what we 

 write for the agricultural press. If we could by any 

 means persuade every render of the Farmer to study 

 the slight difference which often exists between a 

 good soil and a poor one, or a productive and an un- 

 productive one, wo should probably be the happiest 

 man in America. 



No fact is better established by human testimony, 



than that 100 pounds of common plaster of Paris 

 (sulphate of lime) has added 2000 pounds to a crop 

 of clover, grown on an acre of land. On this acre 

 there are 43,560 square feet; and to descend no more 

 than 12 inches into the subsoil, in estimating the 

 whole weight of the earth concerned in making the 

 crop, there are at least 4,356,000 pounds of solid 

 matter, besides the 100 pounds of gypsum on the 

 acre. Clearly the whole difference in a soil which 

 produces 1000 lbs. of clover hay to the acre, and one 

 that yields 3000 lbs. is, that tiic latter contains one 

 part in forty-three thousand Jive hundred and sixty 

 of a particular salt, more than the former. This 

 salt contains less than 22 lbs. of sulphur: and less 

 than 50 lbs. of lime in 100, the balance being water 

 of crystalization, and oxygen combined with sulphur 

 to form sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol. On toils 

 that contain more than a pound and a hall of lime tn 

 the cubic foot, or some ten thousand grains, the ad- 

 dition of fifteen grains of plaster to the square foot, 

 or 100 pounds of soil, produces a decided efiect on its 

 fertility. Now, it is by no means necessary to de- 

 termine in what way this fertilizer operates to aug- 

 ment the crop, to render the demonstration complete 

 that an extremely slight change in the condition of 

 a soil is adequate to produce a remarkably large dif- 

 ference in its productiveness. 



One hundred pounds of guano have given an in- 

 crease of 40 bushels of corn in one field; and a gain 

 of 100 of potatoes in another. That the atoms in 

 this powerful fertilizer create any new ones in the 

 soil or in the atmosphere above it, or that they furn- 

 ish all the atoms in the crop of corn or potatoes, \?, 

 not to be supposed. 



The most obscure point in these interesting pl:c- 

 nomena is, how 26 lbs. of available sulphur and a 

 like weight of available phosphorus sliould give an 

 addition of 40 lbs. of each of these elements of bread 

 and meat, to a single crop, after their application in 

 gypsum and ground bones. 



VVe find on a critical analysis of clover, that the 

 2000 lbs. grown by 100 of plaster, contain twice as 

 much sulphur as the plaster when applied to the 

 land. We can only account for this fact by saying 

 that available sulphur being in the soil but in a defi- 

 cient quantity, tlie supply of a little more to the 

 growing plants enables them to extend their roots 

 deeper and wider into tlie earth, and thus imbibe 

 sulphur-salts as well as other aliment, from a great 

 distance. In other words, as the land gives a small 

 crop of clover or grain without plaster,it must contain 

 a little of all the things demanded by nature to or- 

 ganize said crop. Being, however, diluted and wide- 

 ly diffbsed in the mass of sand, clay and iron, tlie 

 roots of small, feeble plants can imbibe but few of 

 the fertilizing atoms whicli really exist in the sur- 

 face and subsoil, from inability to reach them, with- 

 out the aid of additional food to developc and extend 

 the roots of those dwarfed beings. It is our o[iinion 

 that starved plants uniformly fail to consume more 

 than a fourth of the elements of breail and meat 

 present in the soil, and that many of these dissolved 

 atoms are needlessly lost to the husbandmam, from 

 the lack of a little timely nourishing of the crop, 

 when plants are from four to ten weeks of age, and 

 forming their tissues. 



In agriculture, much depends on times and sea- 

 sons, as well as on tillage and seed. A rain in sum- 

 mer, is called a "season" at tlie South; as without 

 timely rain, tlie hope of the corn-grower is blasted. 



I 



