1850. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



131 



some fifteen kinds of elementary bodies used by Na- 

 ture in forming- every veg-etable and animal substance 

 produced on the farm, in the orchard, or in the garden. 



The science of Rural Economy consists in the sys- 

 tematic study of atoms, and the laws by which they 

 are governed, whether they exist in solid or crum- 

 bliiiij rocks, in loose earths, in vegetable or animal 

 mold, in fermenting manure, in the living tissues and 

 cells of organized beings, or in the form of inrisible 

 gases diflused through the atmosphere. Every pro- 

 duct of agricultural labor is either a vegetable or an 

 animal substance ; and in its production, not an atom 

 of new matter is called into existence. In the lan- 

 guage of science, all matter which is neither vege- 

 table ncT animal, including air and water, is mineral. 

 All minerals are either solids, like sand, clay, and 

 lime : or liquids, like water ; or gases, like common 

 air. The fanner deals largely with atoms in each of 

 these forms ; and hence he should be familiar with 

 the several sciences which treat of natural phenom- 

 ena as witness in the mineral, vegetable, and animal 

 kingdoms. He should know that plants alone can 

 subsist on mineral, or" disorganized food — that if 

 there were no plants in the ocean nor on land, neither 

 marine nor land animals could have a being. In the 

 absence of all vegetation, it is obvious that all animals 

 must be carniverous, or cease to consume organized 

 aliment. Being wholly dependent on mutual destruc- 

 tion for the means of subsistence, every day would 

 diminish the aggregate supply of food, and the last 

 animal would soon die of starvation. 



From the above reasoning, it is plain that vegetable 

 life is older on this planet than animal life, and that 

 plants may have flourished thousands of years before 

 the lowest type of a being which depended wholly on 

 organized food for subsistence, was created. It will 

 also be seen that the lines of demarkation between 

 animals and plants is well defined, by the fact that 

 the latter can organize the elements of all vegetable 

 and animal substances into these compound bodies, 

 which the former can not do. All plants produce 

 and inrreiise organized matter ; all animals consume 

 and diminish the quantity of organized food.* 



WHAT THE COUNTRY HAS LOST BY IMPOVERISHING 

 ITS SOILS. 



Taking the census of 1840 as the basis of the cal- 

 culation, and adding no more than the usual increase, 

 and the number now employed in agriculture in the 

 United States, does not vary much from five millions. 

 The number of acres which they cultivate is not 

 known. In the State of New York there are some 

 12,000,000 acres of improved land, which includes all 

 meadows and enclosed pastures. This area employs 

 about ,500,000 laborers, being an average of 24 acres 

 to the hand. At this ratio, the number of acres of 

 improved land in the United States is 120,000,000. 

 But New York is an old and more densely populated 

 State than an average in the Union, and probably 25 

 acres per hand is a juster estimate for the whole 

 country. At this rate the aggregate is 125,000,000. 

 Of these improved lands, it is confidently believed 

 that at least four-fifths are now suffering deteriora- 

 tion in a greater or less degree. The fertility of 

 some, particularly in the planting States, is passing 

 rapidly away ; in others, the progress of exhaustion 

 is so slow as hardlj to be observed by the cultivators 

 themselves. To keep within the truth, the annual 



* See DumaA — Balance of Organic Nature. 



income from the soil may be said to be diminished 

 ten cents an acre, on 100,000,000 acres, or on four- 

 fifths of the whole. 



This loss of income is $10,000,000, and equal to 

 the sinking of a capital of fl 66,666,000 a year, pay- 

 ing 6 per cent, annual interest. That improved 

 farming lands may be justly regarded as capital, and 

 a fair investment when paying 6 per cent, interest, 

 and perfectly safe, no one will deny. This deteri- 

 oration is not unavoidable ; for thousands of skillful 

 farmers have taken fields poor in point of natural 

 productiveness, and instead of diminishing their fer- 

 tility, they have added ten cents an acre to their 

 annual income, over and above all expenses. If this 

 wise and improving system of rotation, tillage, and 

 husbandry were universally adopted, or applied to the 

 100,000,000 acres now being exhausted, it would be 

 equivalent to creating each year an additional capital 

 of $166,666,000, and placing it in a permanent real 

 estate, where it would pay 6 per cent, annual interest- 

 For all practical purposes, the difierence between the 

 two systems is $333,333,000 a year, to the country. 



There is another view of this important subject, 

 which is worthy of profound consideration. Of the 

 12,000,000 acres of improved land in the State of 

 New York, 1,000,000 are so cultivated as to become 

 richer from year to year. These improving soils are 

 in the hands of 40,000 cultivators, who take and read 

 agricultural journals, and nobly sustain the State and 

 County Societies of that Commonwealth. 



3,000,000 acres of the 12,000,000 are so managed 

 as barely to hold their own in point of fertility. — 

 These lands belong to a class of farmers who do as 

 well as thoy know from personal observation, and 

 seeing how reading men improve their estates and 

 domestic animals. 



8,000,000 acres are in the hands of 300,000 per- 

 sons who still adhere to the colonial practice of 

 extracting from the virgin soil nil it will yield, so 

 long as it will pay expenses to crop it, and then leave 

 it in a thin, poor pasture, for a term of years. Some 

 of these impoverished farms, .vhich 75 years ago 

 produced from 20 to 30 bushels of wheat, on an aver- 

 age, now yield only from 5 to 8 bushels. In an 

 exceedingly interesting work, entitled "American 

 Husbandry," published in London in 1775, and writ- 

 ten by "an American," the following remarks may 

 be found on page 98, Vol. I : * 



" Wheat in many parts of the province [New York] 

 yields a larger produce than is common in England. 

 Upon good lands about Albany, where the climate is 

 the coldest in the country, they sow two bushels and 

 better upon one acre, reap from tuenty to forty ; the 

 latter quantity, however, is not often had, but from 

 twenty to thirty are common ; and with such bad 

 husbandry as would not yield the like in England, 

 and much less in Scotland. This is owing to the 

 richness and freshness of the land." 



According to the State census of 1845, Albany 

 county now produces only 7J bushels of wheat per 

 acre, although its farmers are on tide water and near 

 the capital of the State, with a good home market, 

 and possess every facility for procuring the most 

 valuable fertilizers. Dutchess counnty, also on the 

 Hudson River, produces an average of only 5 bushels 

 per acre ; Rensselaer, 8 ; Westchester, 7 ; which is 



* We ore indebted to the well stored library of JoKf? S. Skikker, 

 Esq., the veteran editor of the '• Plow. I^oom, and .\nvil." for the 

 use of this old and curioua werk on the early agriculture of this 

 country. 



