524 [Assembly 



Mr. Pike. — I put wheat in as near three inches deep as I can. 



Dr. Antisell. — The island of Ichaboe, on the western coast of 

 Africa, was cleared of the deep deposits of guano, and in the very 

 short tirae which has elapsed since, a new deposit of the depth of 

 about eighteen inches has been made. 



The Secretary stated that a few months ago, the Institute sent by 

 Mr. Uzziah Wenman to Prussia, a copy of its transactions as publish- 

 ed by the State. He delivered them to the Royal agricultural society 

 at Berlin, They were received with much satisfaction, and that 

 society returned to the Institute fifteen volumes of their transactions, 

 and ask for free and full interchange. 



Mr. Bpwman — I ploughed my land in Virginia about eight inches. 

 Much of the land thereabout was badly cultivated. A harrow was used 

 to drag down the last year's corn stalks, then with a shovel-nose 

 plough cut a shallow furrow, some three inches deep, in which the 

 corn was planted. The crop from an acre so cultivated, the yield 

 was about two barrels of corn, (about ten bushels.) I have seen 

 three bushels of wheat the yield of an acre, yet that soil had plenty 

 of potash in it. 



Mr. Meigs. — Mr. Madison after he left the Presidential chair, be- 

 came president of an agricultural society. There he deUvered some 

 very able remarks on agriculture. Among other things, that the 

 natural depth of soil all oyer level parts of the globe never cultivated, 

 does not exceed one foot as a general rule. The soil will not in the 

 lapse of ages increase, altho covered with vegetable and animal life 

 from creation. Malthus in his work on population, calculated that in 

 ♦he year 1000, the population of Great Britain was about one million, 

 and that in the ordinary way of increase there have been born since 

 so many human beings that there would be five or six thousand bodies 

 for every square yard of the land. 



A like calculation in reference to the other animals and the trees 

 &c., will be convincing as to the doctrine of Mr. Madison, that the 

 alaaighty gives us one foot of soil, which is as deep as we can con- 



