THE 



OUTHER 



Devoted to Agriculture^ Horticulture^ and the Household Arts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. 

 ^Xenophon. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of 

 the State. — Sully. 



FRANK. G. RUFFIN, Editor. 



F. G. RUFFIN & N. AUGUST, Prop'rs. 



Vol. XVI. RICHMOND, VA., NOVEMBER, 1856. No. 11. 



IMPROVEMENT OF LAND FROM ITS 

 OWN RESOURCES. 



[From the papers of the Nottoway Farmers' Chib.] 



Every farm has within itself the means of its 

 own improvement, unless there is deficiency of 

 the calcarious element. 



Mr. President : 



The subject of manure being incidentally 

 connected with the one under discussion to 

 day, I shall make some observations on it. 



Manure forms the basis of all rational agri- 

 culture ; and, in proportion as its manufacture 

 and application is understood, and practiced, is 

 the measure of its success and perfection. There 

 is no country, whatever may be its natural fer- 

 tility, that can long suffer neglect in this par- 

 ticular without detriment; unless, like lower 

 Egypt, it is enriched by periodical inundations; 

 as there is none, however sterile, even though a 

 drifting sand-heap, that may not, by its judici- 

 ous application, be so reclaimed as to minister 

 to the sustenance of man. 



Virginia is now a melancholy instance of the 

 former position. Possessed, naturally, of physi- 

 cal superiority equal to her geographical position, 

 and with an amount of labor and capital at her 

 command fully equal to the development of her 

 vast resources, she has neglected the improve- 

 ment and preservation of her soil, arid having 

 given to politics the talents due to agriculture, is 

 now bleeding from a thousand wounds inflicted 

 by improvident husbandry. ' * 



It is not my purpose to speak of manures 

 specifically now — I may do that hereafter — but 

 to impress their general importance on your 

 attention, and to urge you to a more diligent 

 use of the means about you, to augment in every 

 judicious manner their quantity and quality on 

 your farms. In every other employment there 

 may be some doubt as to the means adopted to 

 an end, but here the law which governs them 

 is as immutable as Nature herself; study her 

 laws, husband her resources, imitate her ex- 

 ample, and we shall scarcely fail to be more 

 thrifty, wise, and better. 



Manure may be made of everything once 

 endowed with vegetable life ; animals and mine- 

 rals also add important elements. The bones 

 scattered over the farm are rich in phosphate of 

 lime ; and there never was a seed destitute of 

 phosphates ; every ditch bank is rich in potash 

 and earthy salts ; every waste bottom in humus 

 and vegetable remains ; every rag, leaf, stick, 

 and plant, is sufficiently supplied with azote 

 and early salts to contribute, by its decay, to 

 reproduction. 



The laboratory of Nature is greatly to be 

 preferred to that of the chemist; the one de- 

 stroys, the other constructs ; the one, by its 

 analysis, furnishes the elements of which plants 

 are composed ; the other applies these elements, 

 under the wonderful principle of life, to the 

 production of the plant itself. I would not dis- 

 parage agricultural chemistry, it is an infant 

 science just struggling into being, and one from 

 which, when further matured, much good may 

 be expected; but that in this department there are 

 now great errors, confusion, and uncertainty, it 

 would be uncandid to deny ; gifted minds, how- 

 ever, are at work in this noble field the world 

 over, to whose united labors we look with inter- 

 est and hope. And whilst it may be regarded 

 next to impossible ever to understand the proxi- 

 mate principle of vegetable life, its physiology, 

 and nutrition, any more than the origin, es- 

 scence, and ultimate destination of any thin^, 

 there is much that it may do as the handmaid 

 of practical agriculture, to lighten its burdens 

 and speed its course. 



All plants require for their growth a certain 

 degree of nourishment, derived either from the 

 soil or from the atmosphere, or from both ; and 

 those are considered best for fallow, which fix 

 the greatest amount of the ammonifi of the 

 atmosphere with the least exhaustion of the 

 soil ; of these, the leguminous plants, such as 

 clover, peas, beans and the like, are regarded 

 best. The former of these, however, takes up 

 about eighteen per cent, of lime, which, if re- 

 moved, must be supplied by artificial means in 

 quantities sufficient to meet the wants of the 



