234 [Assembly 



He asks the chemist to analyze his soil, and finds that certain 

 substances which formerly constituted important elements of it 

 are gone, and on analysis of the grain he sells, those substances 

 are found. It becomes clear then to his mind, that he has sold 

 the elements of fertility with his grain. His land is exhausted. 

 What shall he do ? Must he abandon his homestead with all the 

 endearing associations that cling around it, and plunge into the 

 western prairies to find a virgin soil to exhaust in a similar man- 

 ner, and thus proceed like the caterpillar consuming and destroy- 

 ing, as he moves westward ? No ! The chemist informs him how 

 to replenish his exhausted soils, with the elements of fertility, at 

 a low cost, and thus enables him to cultivate more profitably 

 than ever his old farm. The old and exhausted plains of East- 

 ern Virginia, are now undergoing this process of renovation, and 

 lauds bought a few years since for six dolars per acre, are now 

 worth fifty. Did our time permit, I could recount hundreds of 

 similar improvements, brought about by men who are little 

 known among the farmers, but whose labors slowly and silently 

 creep into the fields through the pages of printed books and ag- 

 ricultural journals. 



Indian corn, the golden harvest of America, so rich and pro- 

 lific, is one of our most valuable crops, and being a hoed grain 

 crop, is peculiar to American agriculture, and changes altogether 

 the rules of rotation taught in English books on the art. The 

 cultivation of this valuable grain is a matter of the highest im- 

 portance to our agricultural friends, and they should learn liow 

 to raise from 75 to 130 bushels, where they now produce only 

 from 12 to 20. I need only say that high manuring with well- 

 made composts, is all that is needed to insure this desirable 

 result.* 



I must not forget to call your attention to the study of the sci- 

 ence of Botany, which, in its higher branches, teaches the struc- 

 ture and functions of all the organs of plants and the mode of 

 their development; while the examination of the habitat and pe- 



• Mr. Jolin Erown, of Long Island, in Lake AVionipiiaeogo, ha? an average yield of 80 bush- 

 elB of shelled corn to the acre, and in one instance, by high manuring and a peculiar mode of 

 cultivation, he raised 136 bushels, for which he received a premium. Similar crops have been, 

 raised on the same and the a'ljac<;nt islands by Messrs. Lamprey, Pillsbury, Boody and oth- 

 ers. — Sec my Final Report on the Geology and Mineralogy o/Ncir Hampshire' 



