64 FURTHER IMPROVEMENT 



5. In root culture ; and, 



6. In substituting fallow crops for naked fallows. 

 Most of these are necessary to good farming, in a far 



greater degree than they have been hitherto considered. 

 They are the distinguishing features of the new husband- 

 ry ; and as they are practised with more or less intelli- 

 gence and fidelity, in that proportion are they likely to 

 advance the interests of the farmer, and to profit the 

 country. 



We intend to bestow some notice upon each of these 

 branches of improvement ; and shall endeavor to explain, 

 as we go along, their operation upon the soil, separately 

 and conjointly. In -the remarks we shall offer, it will be 

 our object rather to explain the principles upon which the 

 new system is conducted, and which have a common 

 application, and to demonstrate their beneficial influence 

 in husbandry generally, than to detail the minutiae of prac- 

 tice, which must, in some degree, be influenced and con- 

 trolled by a variety of circumstances. 



If we overstock the farm, that is, attempt to keep 

 twice as many cattle upon it, as our pasture and hay will 

 support in a thriving condition — every one will tell us 

 that we don't work it right ; that our cattle, instead of 

 being a profit, under such management, will turn out to be 

 a loss ; that we expend our labor and our forage, without 

 improving their condition, or obtaining any corresponding 

 return. Such is precisely the case with our crops. If 

 we but half feed them, they will be meager, and but illy 

 repay us for their culture. x\hhough, as w^e have ob- 

 served, every one can see the folly of half starving cattle, 

 few seem to perceive the folly of half starving crops, — or, 

 if they see, they do not seem inclined to profit from their 

 knowledge. There is many a farmer, who, under the 

 old system, is scrupulously economical of his cattle-feed, 

 knowing that food makes meat, milk, &c., but who is 

 perfectly reckless of his manure, the food of his crops ; 

 apparently forgetting, that crops are to constitute his cat- 

 tle-food, and that they will be abundant and nutritious pre- 

 cisely in proportion to the food he gives them, and the 

 care which he bestows in their culture. The farmer upon 



