28 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



we imagine we have done much ; the idea of making 

 manure by collecting perishing or putrifying matter 

 into masses, or yarding cattle or sheep for this pur- 

 pose, seems scarcely to have been dreamed of by us. 

 Lime can be had in most sections of our country in 

 abundance, yet, with the exception of a few German 

 settlers in Pennsylvania, few have attempted its use 

 as a dressing for the soil ; and as for bone-dust, there 

 are multitudes among our farmers who, we suspect, 

 never heard of the article. Here, then, is an impor- 

 tant point of difference between our farming and 

 that of England, and on which we must receive 

 lessons from them, or continue to exchange our 

 dollars for their wheat. We can, and we must, pay 

 more attention to providing and applying manures. 

 The rotation of crops, a necessary result of the 

 extension of the turnip culture, is another of the 

 causes which has placed the agriculture of England 

 .'o much in advance of ours. It was formerly the 

 ■ustom to allow land intended for mowing, or, in- 

 ' If ed, for pasture, to remain undisturbed for years ; 

 the impression prevailing, that, if broken up, it would 

 never again become as valuable for these purposes 

 as before. Enlightened practice, however, showed 

 the incorrectness of this opinion, and lands which 

 had remained in turf for five hundred years or more, 

 were submitted to the plough with the most bene- 

 ficial results. Roots, wheat, and grass succeeded 

 each other, and the products of the country were, 

 within a few years, nearly doubled. The same prej- 

 udice respecting meadow-lands is not yet entirely 

 extinguished in this country ; though proofs, which 

 cannot be gainsaid, of the propriety of occasion- 

 ally ploughing them, has in many instances forced 

 conviction on the farmer, and led to a more philo- 

 sophical and rational mode of culture. 



Several years since, it was asserted in the Edin- 

 burgh Review that the introduction of turnip-farm- 

 ing in England had added more than sixty milliona 



