252 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [1524, 525, 586 



the most unpleasant necessities of our fallen state ; yet they are, in reality, so 

 many Guano-islands, whose benefits we can realize with only a nominal cost of 

 transportation. 



524. In the conscientious utilization in agriculture, of human excrements, 

 both fluid and solid, together with bones, dung and all other offal, now partly 

 used for these purposes, we have beyond a doubt, the only universal preventive 

 of the exhaustion of cultivated lands. For it is they into which almost all the 

 products of our fields are ultimately transformed, and in them we shall, there- 

 fore, expect to find all that lias been withdrawn from the former. And if 

 iastead of eatables, we raise cotton, we shall have to import a corresponding 

 quantity of provisions ; these, when transformed into night-soil, would more 

 than replace all the drain on our lands caused by the cotton crops, if properly 

 distributed. 



It may be objected, that if we were to husband the material in question, 

 as the Chinese have successfully done for ages, we should have to change our 

 habits, and blunt some of our senses, and delicacy, to an alarming extent. — For- 

 tunately, the science which has annihilated space and compelled lightening to be 

 the messenger of thoughts, does not abandon us in this problem, momentously 

 simple as it is. The use of disinfecting agents (many of which themselves 

 enhance the value of the material for agricultural purposes), in connection with 

 the proper mechanical contrivances, would enable us even at the present moment 

 to preserve these valuable fertilizers, without any serious offence to our delicacy, 

 if we would but introduce, in this respect, a regular, uniform system ; and if 

 we are to judge by analogy, we can scarcely doubt that more perfect contriv- 

 ances for the purpose would be forthcoming, so soon as the demand for them 

 should become general and urgent. On the continent of Europe, the agitation 

 of this subject has already been attended with the most beneficial results. 



525. It would be extravagant to expect, that such a system should be univer- 

 sally established in this country, until the necessity shall have been more keenly 

 felt. But we have this great advantage, that in our agricultural population 

 there is less settled prejudice and routine to be overcome, than in Europe. They 

 are eager and willing to accept the teachings of true science, and we may hope 

 with some confidence, that by a timely application of these to practice, the ills 

 which now weigh down a large part of the agricultural population of Europe, 

 may be avoided. 



526. But while, in a new country like ours, it may not be practicable to 

 establish at once a system of agriculture perfectly rational, we may try to 

 approach such a system, as nearly as we may under the circumstances. Let us 

 husband the powers of our soils by a proper system of rotation, taking care at 

 the same time, not to withdraw from our fields more than is necessarily con- 

 tained in the marketable portion of our crop. Let us apply to our fields all the 

 manure we can conveniently obtain, without waiting for the soil to become 

 "tired." If we have once thus far exhausted them, we shall be obliged to 

 expend at once, in its restoration to fertility, a much greater amount of money 

 or labor, than that which its sustentation would have cost us, and which, being 

 expended at convenient times, when there was little else to do, would scarcely 

 have been felt. 



Wherever marls containing the elements of fertility are convenient, let them 

 be applied at once, regularly and systematically ; marling every year a certain 

 poition, at least, of our lands, so that the whole shall have received a 

 dressing in the course of from four to ten years, after the lapse of which we 

 shall begin again at the point from which we set out. Let us recollect that 

 while in the use of stimulants (lime, gypsum, etc ), in connection with subsoil- 

 ing and fallowing, we have the means of relieving our immediate necessities, we 

 cannot rely on them for the future, and that each application of the former 

 shortens the duration of fertility, in precisely the proportion in which it 



