INTRODUCTION. ix 



ordinary circumstances of the country. This opinion was derived from the statistical notices of the 

 census and of the Patent Office, and confirmed by the statements of Jay, Wells, and other American 

 writers on the subject. These authorities have warned the agriculturists that if an alteration did not 

 take place in the mode of cultivation, the United States would, in a few years, require a large importa 

 tion of wheat, instead of being able to export to Europe.&quot; 



This was written in 18G1. Since then we have exported more grain to Europe tlian during any 

 former period. The reason assigned for the opinion thus expressed, that the United States would 

 soon become a wheat-importing instead of a wheat-exporting country, is &quot;the scourging and exhaustive 

 system of husbandry now practiced.&quot; There is some truth in these remarks. Our system of cultiva 

 tion has been, and is now to some extent, a scourging and an exhaustive one. It takes more from flu: 

 soil than it returns ; and the time will come, as it already has in some sections, when wheat cannot be 

 as easily or as cheaply raised as it was when the country was new. But it does not at all follow from 

 this that the United States will cease to grow all the wheat it requires. We will have to manure o in 

 land and cultivate it better ; but this is nothing more than has been experienced in other countries. 

 We shall farm better as soon as such improvement is perceived to be profitable and necessary. 



But what are we to understand by an &quot;exhausted soil?&quot; No phrase is more common in agricul 

 tural literature, and none more vague and indefinite. JOHN BENXETT LAWES, than whom there is no 

 higher authority, speaking of his field on which his celebrated wheat experiments were made, says, it 

 was purposely &quot; exhausted&quot; before the commencement of the experiments, and in another of his able 

 papers in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, he says: &quot;All the experimental fields were 

 selected when they were in a state of agricultural exhaustion.&quot; And he tells us what he understands 

 by the term. He says : &quot; The wheat-field after having been manured in the usual way for turnips at 

 the commencement of the previous rotation, had then grown barley, peas, wheat, and oats, without 

 any further manuring, so that when taken for experiment in 1844, it was, as a grain-producer, con 

 siderably more exhausted than would ordinarily be the case.&quot; 



Here we have the highest English agricultural authority speaking of land as &quot;exhausted&quot; after 

 having grown four crops without manure, the previous crop having been manured ; and if this is all 

 that is meant by exhaustion of the soil, we must admit that much of the cultivated land in the older 

 parts of the United States has been exhausted. But one plat in Mr. Lawes s wheat-field has produced 

 a crop of wheat every year since 1844, averaging about fifteen bushels per acre, and this without one 

 particle of manure. It is clear, therefore, that the land itself was not exhausted, and in speaking of 

 this as an agriculturally exhausted soil, Mr. Lawes simply intended to say that the manure which had 

 previously been used was exhausted. 



In this sense our farmers are rapidly exhausting their soil. The English farmer manures his 

 land, grows three or four grain crops, and then considers his land exhausted. The American farmer 

 cuts down the forest, burns more or less of the timber on the land, and scatters the ashes on the 

 surface, then turns up the soil as best he may among the stumps, sows his grain and gets good crops. 

 Why ? Because the land has been heavily manured by nature. The trees and underwood have through 

 their deep roots been drawing up mineral matter from the earth, and the leaves absorb carbonic acid 

 and ammonia from the atmosphere. 



Shall he avail himself of this manure, or shall he let it lie dormant ? What would be said of the 

 farmer who should give his land a heavy coat of manure and then neglect to raise crops? If it will 

 produce good wheat and other cereals that command the ready cash, is he to be accused of adopting a 

 scourging and exhaustive system of agriculture&quot; for growing these crops? And yet this is what the 

 American farmer has done. His land was rich, but he was poor and raised those crops which afforded 

 the most immediate profit. We would not be understood as advocating the continued growth of grain 

 crops without manure; our only object is to show the erroneous conclusions to which a misuse of 

 statistical facts may lead, and to vindicate the American farmers from the charge so frequently pre 

 ferred against them, of recklessly exhausting their soil. We think they have simply exhausted the 

 manure which nature has spread upon their recently cleared fields, and that in doing so to a prudent 



degree, they were not unwise. 

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