STATISTICS OF WHEAT CULTURE. 243 



farmers depend on the natural fertility of the soil to nourish their crops, -with 

 perhaps the aid of a little stable and barn-yard manure, given to a part of them. 

 As the natural resources of the land begin to fail, the supply must be drawn from 

 other quarters than an exhausted field, or its cultivator will receive a poor return 

 for the labor bestowed, 



In Great Britain, where the necessity for liberal harvests and artificial 

 fertilizing is far greater than in this country, the yield of wheat is said to bo 

 governed in a good degree by the amount of ammonia available as food for grow- 

 ing plants. This opinion is founded not at all on theory, but altogether on the 

 teachings of experience. But in England, limeing and manuring are so much 

 matters of constant practice, that few soils are so impoverished as many are in 

 the United States, With land as naked and sterile as is much that can be found 

 in the whole thirteen colonies between M aine and Alabama, English farmers 

 could hardly pay their tithes and poor rates, to say nothing of other taxes, rent, 

 and the cost of producing their annual crops. 



The first step towards making farming permanently profitable in all the older 

 States, is to accumulate in a cheap and skilful manner the raw material for 

 good harvests in the soil. 



Over a territory so extensive as the United States, it is extremely difficult to 

 lay down" any rule that will be applicable even to a moiety of the republic. 

 There are, however, many beds of marl, greensand, gypsum, limestone, saline 

 and vegetable deposits available for the improvement of farming lands, in the 

 Union. In addition to these, there are extraneous resources, the ocean with its 

 fish, its shells, its sea- weeds, and its fertilizing salts, which will yield an 

 incalculable amount of bread and meat. In the subsoil and the atmosphere, 

 every agriculturist has resources which are not duly appreciated by one in a 

 thousand. 



As a general rule, the soil must be deepened before it can be permanently 

 improved. One acre of soil 12 inches deep is worth more to make money from, 

 by cultivating it, than four acres 6 inches in depth. Thus, admit that a soil 6 

 inches deep will produce 14 bushels of wheat, and that 12 bushels will pay all 

 expenses and give 2 for profit. Four acres of this land will yield a net income 

 of only 8 bushels. Now double the depth of the soil and the crop : making the 

 latter 28 bushels, instead of 14 per acre, and the former 12 inches deep, in the 

 place of 6. Fifteen bushels instead of twelve, will now pay all annual expenses, 

 and leave a net profit not of two but of thirteen bushels per acre. If small crops 

 will pay expenses, large ones will make a fortune ; provided the farmer knows 

 how to enrich his land in the most economical way. It is quite as easy to pay too 

 dear for improving lands, as to lose money at any other business whatever. 



The first thing for the operator to do is to acquire all the knowledge within 

 his reach, from the experience of others who have done for their soils what he 

 proposes to accomplish for his. Twenty or fifty dollars, invested in the best 

 agricultural works in the English language, may save him thousands in the end, 

 and double his profits in two years. The Agricultural Journals of the United 

 States abound in information most useful to the practical farmer : and the back 

 volumes, if collected and bound, will form a library of great value. 



dotation of Crops in connexion with Wheat Culture. A system ef tillage and 

 rotation which will pay best in one locality, or on one quality of soil, and in a 

 particular climate, will be found not at all adapted to other localities, different 

 soils and latitudes. Hence, no rule can be laid down that will meet the peculiar 

 exigencies of a farming country so extensive as th e thirty States east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. There are soils in Western New York, known to the writer, which 

 have borne good crops of wheat every other year for more than twenty years, 

 and produce better now than at the beginning of their cultivation. The 

 resources of the earth in supplying the elements of wheat and corn are extremely 

 variable. There are friable shaley rocks in Livingstone county, N . Y., which 

 crumble and slake when exposed to the air, that abound in all the earthy 

 minerals necessary to form good wheat. These rocks are hundreds of feet in 

 thickness, and have furnished much of the soil in the valley of the Genesee, 

 The Onondaga Salt Group, and other contiguous strata, which extend into 

 Canada West, form soils of extraordinary capacity for growing wheat. Indeed, 

 the rocks and " drift " of a district give character to its arable surface. 



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