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TIIE GENESEE FARMER. 



because restitution of the fertilizing atoms removed in crops is an axiom in husbandry 

 that no time can change. To the inhabitants of cities and villages, because the offal 

 from human food, the food of horses and other domestic animals, kept in cities, is a 

 most prolific source of pestilence, suffering, and premature death. 



Thirty years ago, when we commenced the practice of medicine, our attention was 

 called, professionally, to the sources of most of the maladies that afflict the residents of 

 cities ; and while bad habits, poverty, and a thousand other unhappy influences, may 

 co-operate in deranging the human system, the contamination of the air constantly 

 respired, and of the water daily consumed in drink and in food, by decaying vegetable 

 and animal substances, was found to be the most common and fatal cause of sickness. 



Let us now see the practical result of Mr. Mechi's principle, and we will let him state 

 the case in his own language : 



I have a field of five acre", which used to starve a couple of cows. Last year, in May, I began 

 to work it with liquid manure, and continiKy through the winter ; and now it is covered with the 

 finest grasses. I keep ten head of cattle and three horses on it, and they never eaT; it down. In 

 root crops the same result takes place. 



By liquifving night-soil and guano, this enterprising farmer gets double the effect 

 from the manure that can be obtained by applying either in a solid fornj. He says : 



Suppose I wanted to put guano on my field : I would put it into the tanlc, agitate it by an air 

 pump, and in a quarter of an hour you would see it pass out in a stream, going down into the sub- 

 soil to the roots of the plants. The great advantage is, that you absolutely fertilize the bottom 

 soil, while with the plow you can not get down above two and a half feet We put on one hundred 

 gallons a minute all day long, aud all night long ; we do not even stop at dinner time. Fortunately 

 for me, I obtained a little bog land, and there I got plenty of water that now is a great source of 

 fertility; in fact, I would not give it for £3,000 (-$15,000), because I can make a better use of it 

 than I could of the money. 



Facts like the above possess a deep interest. 



A Lancasterian School. — Hon. William C. Rives, in his late Address at Saratoga 

 says : 



"There is no branch of human knowledge in which so much is taught by example, as agriculture. 

 The practice of the best farmers, it has been well said by the leading agricultural writer of England, 

 Mr. PusEY, is the accumulated aud varied science of ages. Acknowledging, as I do with gratitude, 

 and in the most unreserved terms the obligations of agriculture to professional science, I must yet 

 say that farmers are in the main the best teachers of farmers, and that through the medium of 

 agricultural societies and agricultural journals they have been organized into a great Lancasterian 

 school, in which the system of mutual instruction has received its highest development and most 

 useful application." 



The idea which the honorable speaker intended to convey is alike true and beautiful, 

 but expressed in terms chosen with less care than a question of science demands. If 

 OUE present "system of mutual instruction has received its highest development," then 

 further improvement in said system is impossible. So far short of perfection is this 

 system, as now practised, that it is but the living germ in an acorn compared with the 

 mighty oak, whose highest development can only be consummated by the steady annuaj 

 growth of centuries. Our agricultural journals are good seed sown with a liberal hand, 

 but much of it fdls on barren ground. Xot one farmer in a thousand, take the whole 

 United States together, labors to teach his brother farmers all he can, and studies cheer- 

 fully and earnestly the great book of Nature that he may be able to instruct every 

 member of his noble profession. To enlarge and elevate this system of mutual instruc- 

 tion, the Genesee Farmer was made the first fifty cent agricultural journal in America ; 

 and it has been steadily kept at that low price to meet the economical notions of the 

 million, while its conductors have given away about S800 worth of agricultural books 

 a year to create a popular taste for rural literature and science throughout Jhe country. 



Friends ! write for your own paper — extend its circulation and usefulness. 



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