154 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



July 



I 



vation, coincides with onr own. la 1845, when the 

 potato malady was first seriously felt in New \oik, 

 it so happened tliat the writer spent the summer 

 months in ffivinp public lectures in difFerent counties 

 and naturally took pains to learn the circumstances 

 most lavorahle to tlic rot, and those whore the disease 

 did not appear. In most cases, the lack of alka- 

 lies in the soil was connected with the premature 

 decay of the tubers ; in some instances, however, we 

 found insects preyinjj injuriously on the stems of 

 plant.5. Had Mr. Wright applied 25 bu. of nn- 

 leached ashes instead of as many loads of stable 

 manure, to the acre, in addition to those from the 

 soap factory, it is more tlian probable that his potr.- 

 tocs would" all, or nearly all, have been sound. A 

 farmer should be coiuent wiili 300 bushels of sound 

 potatoes per acre, and such crops were grown in 

 1850 by the aid of forest leaves and lime. The lat- 

 ter was spread broadcast and harrowed in at the rate 

 of sixty bushels per acre, while moist leaves and a 

 very little earth covered the seed planted in drills or 

 row's, one way only. When forest leaves decay and 

 yield their organic and inorganic constituents, 100 

 ibs. furnish about six times more alkaline salts than 

 a like weight of rotting wood. Hence, if a farmer 

 had his choice to apply a ton of rotten wood, dry 

 weight, or a ton of leaves, equally dry, as a fertilizer, 

 the ""latter would be worth six times more than the 

 former. To feed potato plants with the high-st suc- 

 ce?s, one needs to understand the composition of every 

 substance grown on the farm, whetlier in the woods, 

 in pastures, meadows, or plowed ground. Fortu- 

 nately, the laws of God are uncliangeable, and have 

 never to be learned but once, altliough they should be 

 obeyed always. Instead of carefully studying the 

 laws which govern the healthy organization of plants 

 and tlie improvement of domestic animals, there are 

 at this time not less than four millions of farm opera- 

 tives at work in the United States, in violation of one 

 of the plainest duties that Providence imposes on man, 

 wlio is the only animal that impoverishes the earth. 

 Not one agriculturi.-t in a thousand has a clear idea 

 of the elements of grain, provisions, wool, cotton, to- 

 bacco, potatoes, hay, and other crops, which exist in 

 an available form within two feet of the surface of tiie 

 earth ; nor of the quantity of these elements of food and 

 clothing annually removed from American soil, over 

 and above what domestic animals take out of fields in 

 their stomachs, and what are carried ofT in crops. 



We athrm, without the fear of successful contra- 

 diction, that subtract the total consumption of. the 

 people of the United States in the year 1851, from 

 their total production in said year, and the surplus 

 will not pay sixty cents a day for the labor necessary 

 to replace in the earth as much potash, soJa, magne- 

 sia, liine, sulphur, phosphorus, ammonia, and chlo- 

 rine, as the sixty millions of acres most exhausted 

 will part Willi in a twelve-month. It is a great and 

 pad mistake to regard our planting and tillage labor 

 as productive industry ; it is emphatically the most 

 destructive that can well be imagined. We have 

 been two centuries exporting potash and pearlash, and 

 wasting the same in soap-suds and manure at home, 

 every pr)und of which came from the soil that now 

 needs alkalies above all things. More than a moiety 

 ofalittie incombustible matter in a mature potato plant 

 is potasii ; and ai least a third of the ash in every seed 

 of wiieat grown in the Union, is the same alkali. 



Pigeons scratch the surface of the earth, fill their 

 crops and fly away ; squirrels have holes and work 



industriously at their autumn harvest, to garner up a 

 fair stock of nuts for future consumption; and man too, 

 waxes fat by simply extracting the elements of breaa 

 and meat from a virgin soil, which lie never placed 

 there, and intends never lo return, lie assumes that 

 God created fertility for the pVcsent generation only, 

 and that the one hundred millions of souls who will 

 be in this Republic fifty years hence, and before our 

 children shall be off the stage, can have no ])ossible 

 rights nor interests in the continued fruilfulness of 

 the earth ! A tree is known by its fruit, and men 

 must be judged by their uniform conduct. The pol- 

 icy which we condemn with so much earnestness, has 

 diminished the population cf Ireland nearly two mil- 

 lions in the last decade ; and it was the leading, all- 

 controlling cause of the downfall of Babylon, Palmyra, 

 Tyre, Carthage, and Rome itself. Who does not 

 know that there are many millions of acres in this 

 young agricultural nation which have been bled, and 

 skinned, and finally abandoned, because they have 

 been insanely robbed of their alkalies, their phospho- 

 rus, and available sulphur ? The most pains-taking 

 researches and estimates show that at least ten thou- 

 sand dollars worth of the elements of fertility are 

 daily washed into the river Thames from London, 

 while laboring people are fleeing from the United 

 Kingdom by hundreds of thousands, annually, to es- 

 cape' hunger and starvation. Belgium is the most 

 densely peopled and the happiest nation in Europe, 

 and simply because her farmers have the common 

 sense to make the excreta from each inhabitant worth 

 to the land an average of five dollars a year. At this 

 rate, the nightsoil annually wasted in the State of 

 New York is worth the trifle of fifteen millions ; and 

 the soil from which all this fertilizing matter is drawn, 

 cannot but be growing poor and poorer as tinso ad- 

 vances. Suppose all the potash annually wasted in 

 the State of Ohio and exported therefrom, was put in 

 one heap, and all that is imported placed in another, 

 how would the two compare in size 'and weight ? In 

 each cubic foot, or 100 lbs., of her soil, there may be 

 an ounce of potasli available for the. organization of 

 starch in potatoes, wheat, corn, and other crops. 

 Thirty years hence, when this fertilizer and all others 

 are mainly consumed, from what source will the far- 

 mers of the Buckeye State obtain three or four thou- 

 sand tons of potash needed to-make the crops of a 

 single season 1 Can they go to the city of Cincin- 

 nati and gather up the alkalies that have been washed 

 into the Ohio river in the preceding half century ? 

 Will Lake Erie give up the raw material of hunian 

 food that Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, and Bufialo 

 have poined into it ? The people of China save the 

 potash in the soap with which a man is shaved, and 

 the ammonia (another alkali) in his beard also. Pot- 

 ash is worth, even in this country, six dollars per 

 100 lbs. for agricultural purposes, and ammonia is 

 worth double that sum. When shall we begin to 

 study rural atTairs as a useful science, establish agri- 

 cultural schools, and think as much of knowledge as 

 we do of new carriages, carpets, or pianos ? Five 

 millions of farmers, and not an agricultural college 

 in the thirty-one States ! Fifty millions annually 

 expended by Congress, and not the first dollar appro- 

 priated to promote agricultural science ! We begged 

 and prayed for the piitance of !S?200 to try experi- 

 ments in the culture of potatoes, corn, and wheat, 

 and the preparation of nightsoil, for the common 

 benefit of all that till the earth, but not a dollar could 

 be had. While Congress publishes 130,000 volumes 



