PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW HUSBANDRY. 21 



CHAPTER III. 



SOME OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW HUSBANDRY. 



The new system of husbandry is based upon the 

 belief, that our lands will not wear out, or become 

 exhausted of their fertility, if they are judiciously man- 

 aged ; but, on the contrary, that they may be made pro- 

 gressively to increase in product, — in rewards to the 

 husbandman, and in benefits to society, at least for some 

 time to come. It regards the soil as a gift of the benefi- 

 cent Creator, in which we hold but a hfe estate, and 

 which, like our free institutions, we are bound to trans- 

 mit, UNIMPAIRED, to posterity. 



The principles of the new husbandry teach, that the soil 

 is the great laboratory for converting dead into living mat- 

 ters — the useless into the useful — manure into plants — 

 plants into animal food : That plants, hke animals, are or- 

 ganized beings ; that is, they live, grow, and require food 

 for their sustenance — have organs to take in food, to elab- 

 orate it, to transmit it through their systems — organs of 

 sexual intercourse, or reproduction, &c., all acting together 

 to one end : That plants cannot, any more than animals, 

 live upon mere air, or earthy matters, as clay, sand, and 

 lime, but that they require, for their growth and perfection, 

 animal and vegetable matters : That the effect of raising 

 and taking from the ground successive crops, is to exhaust 

 the vegetable food in the soil ; and that continued cropping 

 will ultimately render it barren and unproductive, unless 

 we return to it some equivalent for what we carry off. 



The principles of the new husbandry also teach, that 

 by carefully saving, and suitably applying, all the fertihz- 

 ing matters afforded by the farm ; by an alternation or 

 change of crops, and by artificially accelerating or retard- 

 ing the agency of heat, moisture, air, and light, in the 

 process of vegetable growth ; by draining, manuring, 

 ploughing, harrowing, hoeing, &c., we may preserve, un- 



