of Agriculture and Science. 185 



of lime to give solidity to the bones, and indeed of all the elementary prin- 

 ciples requisite to the due performance of the functions of nutrition and 

 respiration. A field of maize, with the tall stems of the plants waving in 

 the gentle suinmer breeze, and spreading their long pointed leaves to the 

 brilliant light of an American sky ; or with the autumnal stalks bending 

 under the weight of the golden grain of the ripened ear, forms a glorious 

 rural spectacle, and is that crop which of all others clothes the husbandman's 

 landscape in its richest beauty. But this plant owes all its importance to 

 its intrinsic value as an article of food ; and could the English farmer grow 

 it, his turnip crop would be comparatively but little esteemed. In this con- 

 nection, we hesitate not to say, that we regret that many of our agricultural 

 writers advocate the culture of the root crops in imitation of the English 

 system of husbandry, in preference to that of maize, which is so well adapted 

 to our superior climate. 



" The condition of the American farmer differs from that of the same class 

 in any other country. He is not only the owner of the soil, but he works 

 it with his own hands. Let not this condition be changed. He may be 

 comparatively poor : he has not his thousands to spare for the purchase of 

 compost, nor his hundreds to pay for the erecting of brick and mortar 

 fences. For his labor he requires a speedy return : indeed this is often 

 indispensable for his own and his family's comfort. We do not mean by 

 this remark to advocate what has been termed the skinning process; but as 

 our farmer is not wealthy, and as he performs his own work, his returns 

 are wanted when his crops are harvested. His true policy in cultivation is, 

 notwithstanding, the preservative policy : his system must still be that 

 which husbands the strength of the soil. 



" It is moreover the peculiar lot of the American farmer to be placed in 

 proximity to vast and rich forests, superior to any thing in the old world ; 

 with a soil deep and black, the debris of numerous ancient generations of 

 organized beings both vegetable and animal, intermixed with the fine silt of 

 rivers and lakes. The compost heaps of the English farmer can hardly vie 

 with the rich soil which is spread by the hand of nature over the w^estern 

 prairies and beneath the western forests. For this reason, the older and 

 partially exhausted soils of the Atlantic slopes must come in competition 

 with the new and exuberantly rich soils of the west under a great disadvan- 

 tage, particularly in the cultivation of some of the staple productions. The 

 western farmer spreads his wheat broadcast over thousands of acres. In 

 those wide-spreading fields, no fence interrupts the wave of the bending 

 grain as the breeze glides over its surface ; and such are the facilities for 

 the transportation of produce, that wheat and flour are poured upon the At- 

 lantic board, as from an inexhaustible magazine which has been accumu- 

 lating its treasures for ages. Towards this almost boundless territory, the 

 tide of emigration continually sets ; and from thence an untiring industry 

 sends back to the less fertile regions the products of her labor, as from an 

 overflowing granary, in such profusion that the drill husbandry, from which 

 the largest returns are derived, can scarcely hope to compete. Still, let 

 but new avenues of industry be opened, and if ever two days' labor are re- 

 VOL. XI. — NO. V. 24 



