AND HORTICULTUI^ALREGISTER. 



^ 



!VOi4. X VTII.3 



PU1!!JSHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aoricultubai. Warehouse.) 

 BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 15, 1840. 



[NO. 4 1. 



N. E . FARMER. 



For llie New England Farmer. 



LETTER FROM WILLIAM FOSTER, Esq. 



Bosloi}, 'i]st Feb., 1840. 



Mr Colman — Sir — Since you are of the opinion 



hat some of my hints niny be acceptable to the ag- 



icultur^l community, and being aware that my 



lasty remarks last evening, could not do justice to 



lie various topics which 1 then merely broached, I 



11 now offer you a few letters on some of those 



epics, in which I shall endeavor to give my recol-, 



ections and thoughts in a more intelligible form. 



If any speculative philosophers should be radical 



tiieir researches, it should be the agriculturists; 



or tlicir speculations are so apt to be reduced to 



ractice, and their consequences felt, for good ^r 



jr evil, that it behoves them, especially, to approacii 



near as it is allowed to man to do, the primitive 



use of every desired or known effect. 



•Vegetation is now a mystery, and will probably 



main such ; but that is no necessary barrier to 



le boldest philosophical approaches to its cause 



nd means, whicli the ingenuity of man can devise. 



Now if lime were so precious as to make itneces- 



iry to cut short these disquisitions, it might be 



lought inexpedient to go so far back as I am aow 



bout to do; — but time is a cheap article wit.'i us 



11. 



When this globe, as tlie igneous geologists seem 



think, was a ball of liquid fire, there could liave 



een no water on its surface ; and where the water 



ame from we know not: here it i.s, and it seems 



be the great menstruum of vegetable and animal 



fe, as well as one of the principal agents of mine- 



1 composition. It is equally necessary to the for- 



lation and decomposition of all nature's works. 



When the water first made its appearance on the 



nrface of this globe, after it had sufficiently cooled 



bear it in a liquid state, it found, suroly, no al- 



Bvial bottoms, no rich intervals fraught with vege- 



ble matter. All must then have been dry volca- 



ic scoria, or igneous mineral ; — no secondary or 



Drtiary formations. At this period —if I may be 



lowed to suppose such an one; and I may as well 



ippose it, as to take for my purpose a mountain 



inge of barren granite rock, — at this period, I say, 



e find ourselves reduced to the, comparatively, 



mple elements of air, water, heat, and caput mor- 



lum. Vegetable and animal e.tistences are not 



?l produced. Nature now open,^ her mysterious 



boratory, v.ith powers and means unknown to us. 



'he heat which we can produce, compared with that 



her chemical furnace, is like polar ice ; and her 



ydrostatic press is as much superior to all imagina- 



le liutnan power, as the pressure of an inverted 



yramid of Egypt restinjf on its ape.v, would be to 



feather pressing the sami? surface. 



Water, air and sun, great agents in the hands of 



le Creator, now begin the work of vegetable for- 



lation, cither out of their own substance or with 



lat substance combined wkh the hard crust of the 



,rth ; which last has never been supposed to pos- 



sess any generative powers, but only the powers of 

 cohesion and attraction. Experience, however, 

 leads us to suppose that this hard and barren crust 

 is operated upon chemically and mechanically by 

 the other three active elements : chemically, through 

 various combinations, unknown to human chemists, 

 or even to Albertus Magnus, the great alcymist of 

 old, whose powers were supposed by the vulgar to 

 be not altogether human ; — and mechanically, by 

 contraction and expansion, occasioned by changes 

 of temperature. Now we are acquainted with some 

 of the chemical powers of air, water, heat and light, 

 separately and combined ; and it is not difficult to 

 imagine such others as would decompose and ren- 

 der a fit aliment for vegetable composition the hard- 

 est substances, even flint. Glass we know is de- 

 composed by exposure to the atmosphere ; and why 

 should not silex, or sand, which enters into the 

 vegetable compound, be thus prepared, or even 

 rocks of every description? That the rocks have 

 been very much diminished in the greater part of 

 Europe, must be evident to those who have seen 

 ranch of that part of the world and compared it with 

 America. 



Those feeble beginnings, which seem to be the 

 firot rude essays of vegetable life, observable on 

 the barren rocks, and called Liclien, by aivnual de- 

 cay and repro.-luction, being washed down by the 

 rain to a stable resting place, would in time afford 

 alimint to vegetation of a higher order; as in the 

 animal fclngdoin, the gniM fry is pasture for larger 

 animals. The metals, we know, are reduced by 

 acids from their most compact and adheske form. 

 They are also decomposed by the active Sements 

 of nature, and made a suitable pabulum for vegeta- 

 bles where we find them incorporated. 



I have dwelt thus long on a known process of na- 

 ture, too familiar to every one perhaps, to req'uire 

 so much notice, and for the purpose only of fixing 

 attention to the various means of drawing from the 

 prolific earth her hidden treasures. The produc- 

 tion, decay and reproduction of vegetable and ani- 

 mal matter in its organized form, pound for pound, 

 or a proportionate yield of these products, for a giv- 

 en quantity of old vegetable or animal material; or 

 with that increase derivable from the forest, the 

 ocean, the bogs, or other sources of prepared ali- 

 ment, should not be the limit which enlightened 

 philosophy should admit; for that would be making 

 no allowance for the increase of our race beyond 

 the territorial limits of our country — which country 

 may be before many years, perhaps, a single State. 

 Moreover, the forest, the ocean, and other sources 

 of an increased supply of vegetable aliment, may 

 not bo within the reach of many, and yet the want 

 of an increasing supply of products be sensibly felt. 

 These soffrces of increase are too well known to 

 be neglected lor any speculative essays on the de- 

 composition of rocks or sand. But, when their 

 present value is known, and the importance of pre- 

 serving and economising them is attended to, wc 

 may safely venture to speculate on the very proba- 

 ble agency which these things themselves have, in 

 reducing the stubborn rocks and the fleeting sands 

 to veo-etable nourishment, and spreading wide their 



nets to draw from the air, the rain and the light, the 

 vivifying princifiles of vegetable life. 



It may be useful to dwell somewhat more, on the 

 less obvious sources of vegetable, formation^ without 

 derogating from those more obvious sources, such 

 as manure, with moisture and heat; for vegetation 

 surely began without manure, since it probably pro- 

 ceded animal life. 



Rocks and sands may be partially decomposed 

 by the gentle dews and small changes of tempera- 

 ture of Arabia Petra; and Egypt; but the barren 

 condition of those countries, where a few secluded 

 spots alone show any signs of vegetable life, proves 

 that tnore water — nature's prolific handmaid — is re- 

 quired to cover those unhappy regions with a new 

 coat of verdure. 



I will now leave speculative philosophy to those 

 who may incline to apply it further to the purposes 

 which I have had in view, but merely to illustrate, 

 and to fortify the theory of close cultivation and 

 shelter, anu the preservation of forest trees on all 

 lands fit for no other use, and especially on high 

 lands. I would even recommend frequent green 

 borders of forest or fruit trees on the best arable 

 lauds, and artificial borders, if they can be raised, 

 on our vast prairies of the West. 



Fortunately, there are numerous historic^al facts 

 to corroborate the theory above. Whe.i the Phce- 

 nicians, with a \ iew to extend their commerce, reach- 

 ed the CO! ■•:!ins of Hercules, they found there that 

 beautiful country now called Spain, which they 

 thou considered ihe end of the world. The princi- 

 pal attraction for these merchants was, the rich sil- 

 ver mines of that new country ; and they speak o^ 

 its implements of husbandry being of silver, and oW 

 having ballasted some of their ships with that metal. 

 But they tell us what is more to ouil^urpose ; that 

 the country was exceedingly fertile, well watered 

 and wooded. We learn from the Roman histori- 

 ans, at a later period, that Spain contained a popu- 

 lation of fifty millions. Still later, in the reign of 

 Ferdinand and Isabella, it contained twontytwo mil- 

 lions of inhabitants. And now it barely supports 

 a half famished population of about ten millions. 

 Yet this favored spot of the earth has the best cli- 

 mate, a good soil, and is almost surrounded by the 

 ocean. — In my youth I spent several years in Spain ; 

 and in travelling over the country, I was surprised 

 to find it so divested of wood, where little else 

 could be expected to grow, viz. the hills and moun- 

 tains. Tiio number of dried rivers (rio secon, as 

 they are called,) was equally remarkable. As 

 Spain has now very few good roads, these dry riv- 

 ers are commonly used as the best mule path.s for 

 travelle.'s ; and it is not uncommon to see the re- 

 mains of fastenings in the rocks, where the boats 

 which navigated those rivers made fast. Immense 

 tracts of arable land once highly cultivated, are 

 now to be seen with scarce a spire of vegetation 

 upon them. Even weeds require the shelter of 

 more lofty vegetables and their aid in the attraction 

 of moisture. Thus has that once fertile and popu- 

 lous country, lost its vegetable and animal products. 



Now is there any thing unreasonable in attribut- 

 I ino- this astonishing change to the destruction of 



