THiE GENiESEE FARMEK. 



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added four-fold to its previous productiveness, by the assistance of an engine of six horse 

 power, which pumps all the water seventy feet before it is distributed. In no other 

 way can barn-yard manure be conveyed to fields so cheaply as dissolved in water and 

 driven by steam. Warm water or cold may be used to wash and leach fermenting 

 manure at pleasure ; and the strength of the liquid rained down upon the land by steam, 

 is regulated by an exact rule. It must be weak. 



New York was the first State to set the example of using canals for commercial pur- 

 poses. Let her now achieve for herself greater credit, and reap a larger profit, by wisely 

 extending the service of her canals to fertilize her needy soil. Hitherto these public 

 works, in all the States where they exist, have operated to impoverish the soil by trans- 

 porting its elements of crops to distant markets, never to return. This ceaseless drain 

 must result in deep and deplorable sterility, unless discontinued. The right use of 

 water, whether rain, river, or from springs and canals, is an object of vast importance. 

 Spring water often contains salts of lime, potash, soda, and magnesia, so indispensable 

 to form the ash of plants, extracted from earth and rocks several hundred feet below the 

 surface. This is drawing valuable alkalies, and alkaline earths, which are true fertilizers, 

 from the deep bosom of mother earth. Spring water also contains crenic and apocrenic 

 acids, both of which abound in available nitrogen. 



On the Duke of Portland's water meadows, (some 400 acres,) the water is distributed 

 in rounded ditches, so that grass grows on their bottoms and sides, which saves land, 

 and nearly all the expense of keeping them clear of falling earth. These meadows yield 

 two good crops of hay, and considerable grazing every year. They were originally a 

 bog swamp, and nearly worthless until drained. 



Drainage^ although not everywhere advantageous, like irrigation, is desen'ing of far 

 more attention than it has yet received. Pipe-draining has the preference over all other 

 contrivances now known. Pipes are made of good clay by a machine, and burnt hard 

 in a kiln, like brick. They are placed end to end in a straight line, water coming in at 

 the joints, and covered first with a layer of straw or sods turned grass-side down, and 

 then with th^ earth excavated from the ditch. Ditches are now made much cheaper 

 than formerly, by the use of a peculiar trench-plow drawn by an extra team of horses 

 or oxen. Science, art,' and system, have brought the operations of draining nearly to 

 perfection. A good out-fall for water is the first thing to be secured. Without this, 

 success is not to be expected; with it, no one need fail to render the wettest ground as 

 dry as need be. The water that drains off from peaty land is generally unfit for imme- 

 diate use in irrigation, on account or the free vegetable acid it contains. If the soil to 

 be irrigated abounds in Kme, the presence of humic or other acid in the water can do 

 little or no harm. Lime is the proper corrector of all acidity in swamp muck, peat, or 

 marsh mud. Aqua ammonia, caustic potash or soda in solution, is the proper chemical 

 test of the presence of humic acid in any soil, or water that may be needed for purposes 

 of irrigation. Uumus or humic acid in the presence of an alkali, gives a colored solu- 

 tion of the humate of potash, soda, or ammonia, as the case may be. Ilumates of lime 

 and magnesia are nearly or quite insoluble. When water charged with organic acids 

 |>ercolates through a soil without lime, it impoverishes tha earth rapidly by decomposing 

 the silicates of potash and soda, and removing their bases. The critical study of the 

 organic and inorganic substances washed out of swamp lands full of muck and peat, out 

 of clay deposits abounding in salts of iron and alumina, and from granitic and calcare- 

 ous earths, has been sadly neglected in this country. Nothing is more common than 

 for a farmer to damage hia land to the amount of hundreds of dollars, without finding 

 out his error until it Ls too late to avoid the evil. By a wise use of water, and a few 

 a<lditional fertilizers, he may improve almost any land in the world, at a small expense. 

 There are one or two (and probably many more) springs in Western New York, that 

 contain free sulphuric acid, and form gypsum as the water comes in contact with lime. 





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