268 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



to the bread, will be more than returned in the 

 crop, and the land more and more enriched 

 each year by a right cultivation, which is ever 

 a profitable one. The productiveness will be 

 increased or renewed each year, much on the 

 principle that leaven produces or multiplies 

 itself when the appropriate materials are in 

 contact with it. And as to the vegetative 

 power of the earth, let therp be due proportions 

 of air, moisture, and warmth on any land, be 

 it even nothing but sand, it will be manifested. 

 But when aided by manure, it will be with far 

 greater rapidity and always with profit without 

 loss, if skilfully done; and the outlay is no 

 actual cost in the sense of this report, when 

 there is a profitable return over all expense of 

 cultivation. 



"The great importance of this subject to 

 the country, is fully borne out by the statistics 

 it gives. The yearly diminishing of produc- 

 tion from the acre, till it becomes so little as 

 to cause the exhausted land to be abandoned, 

 is a wide-spread process, going on over the 

 whole country, and well may Government re- 

 sort to measures to arrest it. Put alarming 

 statements of thousands of millions of cost to 

 do it, will not promote it, but only aid to con- 

 tinue it. What is wanted, is the full and en- 

 forced statement, with its proof over the whole 

 country, that the deterioration is not neces- 

 sary—that it is solely the result of wrong cul- 

 ture — that the abandonment of an acre is an 

 acre of condemnation of the farmer who does 

 it— that in fact there is within the power of 

 every farmer the means of resuscitaiing every 

 acre at a cost less than it will requite to sub- 

 due new land. This should be done; and may 

 the census now to be taken be used to effect 

 it, and every agricultural paper, report, or so- 

 ciety in the land, give its influence to impress 

 on the public mind the truth that there is no 

 necessity for this deterioration — that it is the 

 sole effect of wrong cultivation— that the right 

 will not only prevent it, but is far the most 



Srofitable— that the single principle of leaving 

 alf the annual vegetation on the land will 

 enrich it, and this is all the change required. 

 The forest is enriched from its yearly fall of 

 leaves and dead limbs. The careful use of 

 the grape leaves has been found ample to keep 

 the grapery productive." 



The writer of the above may know what is 

 the "right cultivation" to prevent the "dete- 

 rioration" of cultivated land; if so, his light 

 is most effectually hid under a bushel. No 

 one not a fancy writer on agriculture would 

 say that " the productiveness will be increased 

 or renewed each year, much on the principle 

 that leaven produces, or multiplies itself, when 

 the appropriate materials are in contact with 

 it." But, most sage critic, suppose "the ap- 

 propriate materials" are lacking in the soil or 

 in the " kneading-trough ;" what then'? Will 

 your "leaven" make wheat or bread without 

 "the appropriate materials'?" Certainly not. 



When we stated that there were 8.000,000 

 acres of land in the State of New York so 



much exhausted that twelve dollars and fifty 

 cents an acre would no more than renovate 

 them, calling for an outlay of one hundred 

 million dollars, criticism was both expected 

 and desired. The truth can "only be elicited, 

 and the evil corrected, by public discussion. 

 To provoke this was the deliberate aim of the 

 "startling statements" erroneously ascribed to 

 the Commissioner of Patents. They were 

 made by one who was born and reared on a 

 farm in the State of New York, and who has 

 devoted most of his life to the study of this 

 and kindred topics. That partially exhausted 

 soils may be improved with a profit, is a point 

 for which we have long contended ; but in 

 New York the profit will be diminished from 

 ten to fifteen dollars an acre, before the land 

 can be fully renovated. If so, the injury done 

 to impoverished fields, and damage to their 

 owners and the State, is an average of twelve 

 dollars and fifty cents an acre. There are 

 twelve million acres under cultivation in New 

 York, and from our childhood up we have 

 seen farmers extract potash and bone-earth 

 from this soil, and send both to distant mar- 

 kets, never to return. Will any man of com- 

 mon intelligence say that this vast area of 

 impoverished soil contains as much of the 

 elements of bones, and as much potash and 

 other alkalies now, as it did seventy-five years 

 agol One-half of the earthy maiter removed 

 in a crop of potatoes, is potash; and one-third 

 of that taken out of a field in the seeds of 

 wheat, is the same alkali. Whether a farmer 

 buys wood ashes and bones at their market 

 price, or labors for years to draw them from 

 his subsoil, in either case it will cost him 

 fiorn ten to fifteen dollars an acre to supply 

 his surface soil with as much as God gave it 

 before man began to till it, and waste its ele- 

 ments of food and clothing. Man has not the 

 power to curse the earth with irredeemable 

 sterility. But to say that to impoverish it does 

 not involve an injury to the community, and 

 the necessity of a loss of labor to renovate it, 

 is simply to assert what every man of sense 

 knows to be untrue. No hocus-pocus, "lea- 

 ven in bread," will add lime, soda, potash, 

 phosphorus, magnesia, chlorine, sulphur, so- 

 luble silica, or rich mould, to a worn out cot- 

 ton, corn, or wheat field. "The vegetative 

 power of the earth, with due proportions of 

 air, moisture, and warmth, on any land, be it 

 nothing but sand," is a very pleasant dream, 

 but nothing more substantial. No amount of 

 pure sand, air, warmth, and moisture, will 

 form the bones in a man's little finger, nor the 

 brain in his cranium. His daily bread and 

 meat must contain other ingredients extracted 

 from the earth. 



To increase its natural productiveness is 

 entirely practicable; but it will cost money or 

 labor to achieve this desirable result. Nor 

 can the end ever be attained by falsely assert- 

 ing that "a million tons of human food" may 

 be annually taken from as small an area as 

 will produce it, without restitution, and not 



