INTRODUCTION. 
127 
ible. Nevertheless, the contrast in this respect to the picture before presented, 
is full of encouragement. Barns and yards are now constructed with a view to 
the accumulation and preservation of manure, and extensive experiments have 
been made to ascertain the manner in which the greatest possible benefit can be 
derived from its use. Discrimination prevails in the application of whatever is 
used for that purpose, to the different species of plants. Indian corn and roots 
are now cultivated with the immediate application of fresh manures, while the 
grain crops are cultivated upon grounds previously prepared, by incorporating 
the nutriment with the soil. Several substances are now extensively used as 
manure with beneficial results, such as poudrette and peat, and especially gyp¬ 
sum, which, although fifty years ago known to be a stimulant to vegetation, was 
regarded as operating to exhaust the fertility of the soil. More gypsum is now 
prepared and sold in the counties of Onondaga and Cayuga alone, than twenty 
years since was used throughout the whole state. It has been found by expe¬ 
rience that the deep ploughing, and complete pulverization, now performed with 
ease by means of improved instruments, expose the soil more completely to the 
action of the atmosphere, and furnish a better range or pasture for the roots of 
plants, and thus operate favorably in regard to both the certainty and abundance 
of production. The present mode of draining lands already capable of cultiva¬ 
tion, is wholly a modern improvement; that process having heretofore been 
confined to swamps and marshes. The sub-soil plough Jias been invented with 
express reference to freeing soils from water and deepening them, without bringing 
to the surface the sub-soil which is unfit at first for purposes of vegetation. Our 
agriculturists have also learned that the mechanical mixture of the earths, by 
effectual ploughing, conduces to fertility. But in no respect has there been a 
more decided advance in husbandry, than in the attention paid to the rotation of 
crops. The practice of exhausting land with a succession of similar or varied 
crops, and then “ laying it by for old field,” is no longer known. The impor¬ 
tance of an alternation of crops with a seeding of grasses, as a part of the rotative 
system, is universally acknowledged, and has not only been demonstrated by scien- 
