123 EXHAUSTION OF SOILS, 



EXHAUSTION OF SOILS. 



Is it viot worth the while for our farmers to inquire, 

 very particularly, what crops are most exhausting ? In 

 some of the new soils of the west, hemp, flax,, wheats 

 potatoes, may be cultivated for years without any sen- 

 sible deterioration ; but we have a soil to be managed 

 which has already had its turn of bearing these ex- 

 hausting crops, until a great portion of it scarcely bears 

 enough to pay the fencing and the taxes. 



What is the cause that so much of our plain and 

 easily-tilled lands is reduced so low ? We have cropped 

 and cropped, without manuring, until we get no pay 

 for cropping. And the farmers of Maryland, Virginia, 

 and Delaware, have done the same thing. We have 

 lately seen a letter from a gentleman in Virginia to 

 Judge Buel, inquiring what he would best do with his 

 490 acres of land, and but very few hands to cultivate 

 it. The gentleman states that his crop of corn averages 

 from one to seven barrels to ihe acre. Another, an ag- 

 ricultural writer of Virginia, stated, last season, that 

 Virginia planters usually planted their plains till they 

 ^vould produce only Uom jive to ten bushels to the acre; 

 and: then they suflfered them to lie and recruit. 



Our plains, too, have been run ; and now, in the 

 sportsman's phrase, ''we must try back." Our hilly, 

 and rocky, and rough lands are often observed to pos- 

 sess a strong soil still; and the reason is obvious. We 

 doubt whether these rough lands were made better by 

 iia-ture than our smooth lands were ; for, on clearing up 

 a nev/ field of plain land., we obtain as large crops, at 

 first, as wc do on the hills and among the rocks. 



It was a fashion, in former days, to reap fields annu- 

 ally, and take off a white crop, without applying any 

 manure ; and we too plainly see the consequences : 

 these fields are now barren, while our rough, and 

 rocky, and hilly lands, which have borne nothing but- 



