BENEFIT OP LENIENT CROPPING. 237 



tivator. But on the other hand they might as readily be used 

 profitably, in part reinvested, and increased by partial accumula- 

 tion, while still producing good profit, by judicious farming. If a 

 merchant's capital, in ships, warehouses, and merchandise, could, at 

 any instant when desired, be converted, partly or wholly, to the value 

 in ready money, surely no one would deem that facility as other 

 than an immense advantage to his business and means for increas- 

 ing his wealth. Or suppose that the merchant's trade with remote 

 countries, usually requiring three years to return his ventures and 

 the profits, could, by some change, bring the like returns every 

 three months ; would any one contend that this more rapid (t turn- 

 ing over his money' ' would be a loss to him ? Yet both facilities 

 would enable him, if so inclined, so much the sooner to spend his 

 income and his capital stock. Just so, and no more, is the farmer's 

 land necessarily to be exhausted, or his total income and capital 

 spent, because calxing has enabled him to obtain a certain amount 

 of income in half the time previously required; or even to draw out 

 his whole landed capital in annual income, and to waste the whole, 

 if he is so foolish a prodigal as to take that course. 



In truth, if but a small proportion of the new products, or in- 

 crease created by calxing, be given back as manure to sustain the 

 productive powers of the land whether in prepared putrescent 

 manures, or in green crops used as manure, or merely by giving 

 rest, and the natural growth during rest to be left on the land so 

 that the draughts from the land will be less than the supplies fur- 

 nished to it from all sources, there will be no continued exhaustion 

 even in the slightest degree, no diminution of average products 

 and the sons, no less than the fathers, may be made rich by the 

 operation of lime. 



On all cultivated lands, whether rich or poor, calxed or not, 

 proper considerations of farming profit alone would require that the 

 crops should take no more of fertilizing principles from the land, 

 than are restored, and exceeded, if possible, in the returns made to 

 the soil. In making these returns, bountiful Nature adds three 

 and four-fold to all that the farmer can give in manure or other 

 improvement. The earth, water, and the air, are all continually 

 preparing and furnishing manuring principles to the soil and to the 

 crops. The richer and better constituted the soil, or the more it is 

 enriched by putrescent manures and rest, the more, and in a far 

 increased proportion, does Nature furnish in addition, other aids 

 to resuscitation or increase of fertility. Hence, the more that 

 the farmer gives to the land, the more, and in increased pro- 

 portion, will it return to him. Therefore, it is no certain course 

 of cropping, and of intermission or melioration, that can be stated 

 as always improving the fertility of land, or otherwise exhausting 

 it. The results of a certain rotation may be improving to a good 



