304 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



by a slow and gradual process : science has enabled 

 us greatly to abridge this period, by producing our- 

 selves, in rapid succession, the same changes that 

 nature, unassisted, would require half a century to 

 effect. We do this in two ways : either by resto- 

 ring to the soil, in the form of manures, what we have 

 taken from it in the shape of grain or grass, or by 

 such a rotation of crops as shall prevent the ex- 

 haustion of the specific food of the plant" in the one 

 case, or the injurious accumulation of excrementi- 

 tious matter in the other. The successful combina- 

 tion of both these methods, manuring and rotation, 

 constitutes the great secret of successful agricul- 

 ture ; and the establishment of the principles on 

 which the system is based may be considered the 

 greatest improvement of its age. In those parts of 

 our own country and in Europe where the system 

 of manuring and rotation has been fully adopted, a 

 steady improvement in the soil and in the crops is 

 clearly apparent, and not the least symptom of ex- 

 haustion or of deterioration can be seen. It is time 

 that the unphilosophical system of taking crop aftei 

 crop of the same kind from land should be aban- 

 doned for the more rational one pointed out by na- 

 ture herself, and which has been proved to be so far 

 superior to the former methods. Corn, wheat, clo- 

 ver, and manure (the last applied to the first crop) 

 have trebled the produce of the lands in Dutchess 

 and on Long Island within thirty years ; and lands 

 that had been exhausted and abandoned have been 

 reclaimed, and restored to a state of fertility rivalling 

 the best districts of the West. There is great rea- 

 son to fear that this subject is not yet properly ap- 

 preciated by our farmers. We, in the comparatively 

 new parts of our country, go on as though exhaus- 

 tion were impossible, and reducing the fertility of 

 our lands a mere fiction. Do we not already begin 

 to perceive proofs (and particularly where the skin- 

 ning process in cropping is adopted) that these 



