240 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [Tl 80, 481, 482, 483 



gar ; and all unite in blaming him as foolish and improvident. Now, the cap- 

 ital of the agriculturist is the fertility of his soil, of which he ought to use the 

 interest, but without seriously diminishing the principal The power possessed 

 by the nutritive ingredients of the soil, of assimilating from the atmosphere, 

 binder the influence of vegetable life, the constituents which torm the main bulk 

 ©fa°ricultiiral products (361). is like the interest- bearing power, so to speak, of 

 invested capital. And the simile holds good even so far that, if we add or 

 return to the soil, yearly, tvhat we have drawn /rem it in the shape of crops, the 

 amount of available, interest-bearing capital increases. 



For what we return in manure, is in an available condition; a d besides this, 

 the action of the atmosphere continually renders available an additional supply 

 from the utidecomposed minerals of the soil. Land thus treated, therefore, con- 

 tinually improves by culture, and will always yield full crops. 



Obedience to the maxim just quoted is the conditio sine qua von of sustaining 

 the fertility of a soil in the literal sense, i. e, of rendering it equally and evenly 

 productive for all time to come. 



480. Cu'tlvating too much Lincl. — There is another very general rule which 

 applies everywhere, and is sinned against, very generally, throughout the West, 

 viz: that it is more profitable to keep a small tract of land in a high state of 

 cultivation and productiveness, even by the aid of artificial manures, than to 

 raise indifferent crops on a large area ; even though the aggregate amount of the 

 crops should be the same in both cases. 



The truth of this maxim is so easily demonstrated, that the departure from 

 it in practice, which is so very common, can be explained only on the basis of 

 the difficulties which lie in way of the introduction of any change of habit, 

 however salutary. 



481. The labor of oulture is the same Tor equal areas of land, whether rich or 

 poor; and the cost o( production ol a bale of cotton on land which produces 

 only Juilf a bale per acre, is nearly or quite twice as great as in the case of land 

 which produces a bale on the same area; the profits, of course, being proportion- 

 ally diminished. If therefore, we can doiMe the production of ''half'-bale-land" 

 by the employment of half of the force which was needed to cultivate the 

 unimproved land, in the improvement of the soil (by deep plowing, preparing 

 and hauling m mure, etc.) ; we shall certainly lose nothing, even if we abstract 

 from the improvement of tt.e staple, and consequent higher market value of the 

 product, when raised on a more generous soil. In the overwhelming majority of 

 cases, however, it will be found in practice that far less than one half of the force 

 of a plantation, will be sufficient to bring about, and sustain, the improvement in 

 question, in the case assumed above; and the same holds true, more or less, in all 

 analogous cases ; the result being that in planting lands in a high state of cultiva- 

 tion, we can produce more, and a better quality of crops, than we possibly can by 

 the employment of the same force on poor or indifferent soils, no matter how large 

 their area. The inferiority of the quality of crops raised on poor lands, is not 

 often taken into consideration, even by those who watch most anxiously the 

 smallest fluctuation in the average prices of cotton ; when the same amount of 

 anxiety and attention, if bestowed on the cultivation of the staple, might have 

 increased its intrinsic value per pound, not by eighths, but by as many entire cents. 



RETORATION OP EXHAUSTED SOILS : AND MAINTENANCE OP FERTILITY. 



482. We shall now inquire how far the various methods at present employed 

 of improving land, fulfil the conditions previously referred to. 



1. ROTATION OF CROPS. 



483. What is the rationale of the effica:y of rotation of crops, has been pre- 

 •riously stated (1f393, ff.). One and the same plant repeatedly grown on the 



