32 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



and it is this which constitutes the pioneer marks of 

 improved husbandry in our own land. 



la the preceding sections we have suggested the 

 importance and the modes of making our lands rich 

 and dry, and of subjecting them to good tillage. Let 

 us now inquire under what method of management 

 they are likely to make us the largest returns, with- 

 out diminishing their intrinsic value. 



It is palpable to every observing farmer, that the 

 old mode of permanently dividing our grounds into 

 meadow, plough, and pasture lands is a most wretch- 

 ed system of exhaustion, both to the land and its oc- 

 cupant. The tillage ground deteriorates with the 

 scanty manuring it gets, till it ceases to make a re- 

 turn for the expense of culture, or till it is thrown 

 into old fields or commons. The meadow-grasses 

 run out, mosses and weeds come in, the soil becomes 

 too compact and impervious for the ready admission 

 of the great agents of vegetable decomposition and 

 nutrition, and the free extension of the roots of the 

 finer grasses ; and as all is carried off, and little or 

 nothing brought back, the soil is annually becoming 

 poorer and less profitable. The pasture is the only 

 portion of such a farm that is improving ; and even 

 in this, bushes, brambles, and noxious weeds are too 

 often permitted to choke and destroy the better 

 herbage. 



It is equally apparent, that we caimot take two or 

 more arable crops of the same kind from a field in 

 successive seasons without a manifest falling off in 

 the product. The reason of this may be found in 

 an immutable law of nature, which has provided for 

 each species of plants a specific food suited to its 

 organization and its wants. Thus some soils, for 

 instance, will not grow wheat, although abounding 

 in the common elements of fertility, and although 

 they will make a profitable return in other farm crops, 

 in consequence of their being deficient in the specific 

 food required for the perfection of wheat. One fain- 



