^0. 144.] 433 



•shambles — or buried witli the worn-out old horse, below the stone 

 'heap, or drifted out on the salt meadow. 



The nitrogenous and carbonaceous matters so profusely be- 

 stowed upon the soil by the farmer, ,nroduce,it is true, the quick- 

 growing and broad-leaved vegetables of the market gardener ; but 

 their stay in the silicious earth is too hhort fur the limited quan- 

 tity of inorganic salts to fit them for the pabulum of fruits. 



It is well known that manures, to produce appropriate action 

 upon trees, must have undergone the influence of fall, winter, 

 and spring upon their particles. Here no restraining carbon or 

 alumina retains the ammonia from volatilizing into the atmos- 

 phere, or in solution as a carbonate, traveling in company with 

 the potash, and soda, and phosphoric acid, down below the reach 

 of roots of trees, and being lost. The fact is, the farmers and 

 fruit-growers of Long Island have not been niggard in their sup- 

 ply of food to plants and trees — (it is contrary to the religious 

 creed of a Hollander, and grossly heretical to stint anything in 

 provender) — but the soil has changed from its original condition. 



The carbon of the soil, nearly indestructible as it is, has worn 

 away at last , and elaborated into woody fibre of plants. While 

 the littie clay once existing there, following the law, that the 

 smallest and weightiest particles work downwards — has passed 

 below the strata where the roots seek nutriment. What they 

 obtain is seized, while the rich salts are hurried by them through 

 the loose and spendthrift soil. There is little difficulty in recon- 

 -ciling the apparent inconsistency of the two facts, that soils will 

 produce thrifty growth of wood, and refuse to support the fruit. 



Woody fibrous growth, it is well known, is produced early in 

 the season ; in truth, there is an almost imperative law that for 

 bids the simultaneous production of fruit and fibre. The latter 

 Is provided for while the soil is full of juices, and before the arid 

 summer has burned and wasted them. 



No condition of the soil is so favorable to the retention of moist- 

 flire alone, as an abundance of carbon or alumina. They act as a 

 £Assem.bly, No. 144. J B 2 



