rvoi-i 



wealth of Belgium. The soil, artificially enriched, produces more than double the 

 quantity of corn required for the consumption of its inhabitants." The same reliable 

 author states that the average of fat cattte sold in England for fourteen years by Bel- 

 gian farmers, was 898,076 head per annum. With them, the urine of a cow is worth 

 ten dollars a year to make grain and meat for exportation. London, Liverpool, and 

 Paris markets govern the price of breadstuffs and provisions to a large extent in the 

 State of New York, not less than at Brussels. With these focts before us, let us see 

 what is the substantial progress of agriculture in the Empire State, according to the best 

 lights of official statistics. 



From 1840 to 1845, the number of sheep in the State was increased about 25 per 

 cent.; and so prosperous did sheep husbandry appear to the editor of the Wool Grower 

 in 1849, that he estimated the whole number of sheep in the United States in June, 1850, 

 at 30,000,000, yielding two and three-quarters pounds of wool a head. When the 

 census was taken, instead of 30,000,000 sheep, the official figures were 21,620,482; 

 and New York, in place of a continued increase, as was expected, had reduced her 

 flocks from 6,443,855, to 3,453,241 — a reduction of nearly one-half in five years. 



Much has been said about flax culture in this and other States ; and a learned Pro- 

 fessor from London was invited to lecture on the subject at the recent fair in Saratoga. 

 In 1845, the flax crop of this State was 2,897,062 pounds; in 1850, it was reduced to 

 940,577 pounds — a felling ofi" of two-thirds in five years ! 



With fewer acres of land under improvement by half a million, the farmers of this 

 State were able to keep 1,584,344 hogs in 1845 ; while in 1850 their partially impov- 

 erished fields kept only 1,018,252 — a reduction of 34 per cent, in five years, almost 

 equalling that in sheep. 



In 1845, their better pastures and meadows kept 2,072,330 head of neat cattle; in 

 1850, their poorer pastures and poorer meadows, notwithstanding they had nearly three 

 millions less sheep to summer and winter, yielded sustenance to only 1,877;639 head of 

 cattle. And to cap the climax of New York progress in husbandry, the number of 

 horses kept was reduced from 605,155, in 1845, to 447,014, in 1850 ; and milch cows, 

 from 999,490 to 931,324. 



Have the State and County Agricultural Societies in this great commonwealth duly 

 investigated the causes of this alarming decrease in the machinery for making manure ? 

 We suspect that they have turned away from the profound study of the science of sta- 

 tistics, to enjoy the light and trivial amusements of common cattle shows. Whether 

 the cultivators of the earth draw their increased crops of wheat and corn, oats and bar- 

 ley, from the natural resources of the subsoil, or from manure honestly applied to the 

 land, who among all the promoters of agricultural knowledge in New York has ever 

 taken the least pains to inquire? Tell us plainly, kind reader, what sort oi progress 

 those farmers are making who do not purchase imported manure, nor the raw material 

 to form their crops, and do not keep stock enough to replace a tithe of the elements of 

 fertility extracted from their cultivated fields ? 



Can a cubic foot of any earth in these fields contain more than a quite limited quan- 

 tity of the precise atoms that go to organize wheat and corn, grass and potatoes ? 

 Why are the dung and urine of a sheep worth a dollar a year in Belgium, and scarcely 

 ten cents in New York ? Because in Belgium no one is allowed to consume and waste 

 the natural resources of the land that both feeds and clothes an intelligent and moral 

 people. They use the soil, not abuse it ; while we both use and abuse it. 



If it be possible in the moral government of society, and the necessary connection of 

 one generation with the other, for the first and the parent to wrong the second and the 

 oftspring, then this generation is guilty of the crime of robbing the land of its elements 

 of bread and meat, and wasting them in cities and elsewhere, which elements God 

 placed in the virgin soils of America for the equal use and benefit of all generations in 



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