THE GENESEE FARMEB. 



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intrinsic and productive value of every man's farm in five years, if it were only en- 

 couraged as it ought to be. New York farmers enjoy great facilities for the economical 

 improvement of their meadows, pastures, and tilled fields. They lack nothing but a 

 little attainable knowledge — knowledge to be derived from original researches yet to be 

 made. They are invited, most respectfully but earnestly, to take a single step in advance 

 of their present position. As in the acquisition of property, so in the increase of 

 knowledge, they can keep all their present stock, even to the extreme of prejudices, and 

 then learn to make a far wiser and more profitable use of the manifold physical elements 

 which Nature has placed within their reach. When Providence sent the farmers of the 

 Nile a full supply of water, they wisely stored up all that they needed for future use. 

 The same Providence drops from the clouds an average of two hundred pounds of 

 water upon every square foot of soil in the United States ; and who among all our five 

 millions of owners and cultivators of land, stores up that excess of rain water which 

 does not soak immediately into the ground, but goes to form freshets in creeks and 

 rivers ? Why should American farmers appear to despise the practical science of agri- 

 cultural engineering, and thereby deprive their crops of both irrigation and manure, 

 when and where they are most needed ? Weigh well the facts that almost every square 

 yard of ground receives a ton of water every year, and that a little science communi- 

 cated to the masses would sufiice to add four fold to the natural benefits of this "fat- 

 ness," which might abound every where in this country as it does in the valley of the 

 Nile. The sources' of the Nile, the Mountains of the Moon, contain no elements of 

 fertility that do not exist in equal abundance in the mountains of New England and 

 New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The rain water of Africa is no richer than 

 the rain water of America. By uniting the careful study of astronomy, surveying, 

 engineering, and other sciences, with practical agriculture, the cultivators of the soil in 

 the rainless valley of Egypt made their country the granary of the world for thousands 

 of years. Even now they export from ten to twenty million bushels of wheat a year, 

 to say nothing of cotton and other staples. The history of agriculture is full of instruc- 

 tion, and ought to be read far more than it is. In eastern Asia, an unwise system of 

 tillage increased the area of barrenness on all sides of every natural desert. 



When will Americans understand that it is the wise use of natural advantages, not 

 their reckless abuse, which makes a great, enduring, and powerful nation ? Science will 

 confer upon agriculturists the ability to draw the elements of grain from the earth to 

 the°depth of fifty and one hundred feet, with a liberal profit. As this statement may 

 startle some of our unprogressive readers, who can not possibly discover sixty pounds 

 of wheat in twenty of guano, we earnestly desire to test in wheat and corn fields, in 

 meadows and pastures, the soundness of our reasoning on this subject. Trust-worthy 

 experiments in agTiculture cost money ; and their expenses should be borne by the 

 small contributions of many associates. We wish to find one thousand men who feel 

 able and willing to give a dollar a year to promote agTicultural science. Many years 

 ago, after receiving the best chemical education this country aflbrded, we imported 

 chemical apparatus from Europe, and prosecuted a series of researches, some of which 

 are thus noticed in the September number of the American Farmer, in an extended 

 and valuable article on wheat culture : 



Here, for the benefit of our numerous new subscribers, it may be opportnne to the oocnaion to 

 co]»y a few ptiragrapha from Dr. Daniel Lke's adnurablo articles, wliich originally appeared in his 

 excellent journal, the Genesee Farmer. We give them ngi\in, because of the reliablenees of tlie 

 authority, and because of the important facts they detail. Dr. Lee saya : 



"There are 7.7 pounds of asli in 100 pounds of dry clover. If this crop be taken from a fk'hl for 

 a number of years, witiiout making restitution, it will be fonnd quite exhausting, notwithstanding 

 the power of clover to draw its organic nourishment from the atmosphere. Aj> acre of stout clover, 

 when perfectly dry, has been known to weigh S,6'.)4 pounds, containing 284 pounds of ash. lliis 

 is some 80 pounds more than is removed from an acre in a fair crop of wheat It is useful to study 



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