]88 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
tendency or an effort to regain its lost strength. 
If suffered to lie at rest, it will, by the action of 
the rains which fall upon it and penetrate it, and 
by the influence of the atmosphere operating up- 
on and dissolving the rocks interspersed through 
it, either in small or large particles, and combin- 
ing the mineral substances thus liberated with 
decaying vegetable matter, acquire new r igor and 
afresh supply of those elements of which cul- 
tivation has deprived it. It is In this way that 
during fallow the action of the air and moisture 
gives to soil a fresh supply of the elements of fer- 
tility, and prepares it for a new crop. This is 
the process spoken of above, and is the effort of 
nature to restore fertility to soil. Now the ait 
of improvement consists in aiding that effort. 
As in the human system, a wise and beneficent 
Deity has implanted what physicians call “ the 
healing power of nature” — that is, a power in the 
system, when it becomes disordered, to return to 
health, and the use of medicine is merely to assist 
that power; so — if the analogy may be allowed 
— he has also, in His boundless goodness, im- 
planted in soil a resuscitating power, else would 
continued and exhausting cultivation make our 
world a vast and boundless desert ; and (if 
■we be not running the comparison too far)- 
when soil has become deteriorated and is mak- 
ing an effort to recover its pristine vigor, we 
must bring a.l the means in our power to the aid 
of that effort — we must assist in supplying those 
fertilizing substances of which cultivation has 
deprived it — and when those substances are 
supplied we must prevent them from being 
washed awav by the next rain which may fall — 
we must apply manures — we must plowin green 
crops, and withal we must give the soil time to 
resuscitate itself, and not make too frequent 
drafts upon it without affording it that rest, with- 
out which every thing that is in constant action 
will wear out. 
We have now gone through briefly — perhaps 
too briefly — the subject referred to us, and we 
lear we have imparted but little information — 
certain we are, we have advanced nothing new 
— no ideas with which the members of the club 
are not already familiar. We have had no new 
theory to communicate. Our aim has been to 
condense, in as lew words as possible, some of 
the plainest, cheapest and easiest means of im- 
proving land, and to offer some reasons to stimu- 
late the members of the club to commence the 
work of improvement. If this should be done, 
our object will be attained. 
E. G. Cabanzss, ^ 
J. Powell, > Committee. 
J. R. Tuenes. 3 
From the Massachusetts Ploughman. 
Agricultural Reading. 
Mr. Editor:— Many valuable hints to farm- 
ers are found in the Ploughman, as well as in 
other kindred prints. Studious, industrious 
farmers are always glad to avail tbemselves of 
these hints as helps in the pursuit of their voca- 
tion ; hence, no good farmer, ambitious to excel 
in his calling, will be without some well con- 
ducted agricultural journal, as a prompter in the 
labors of the field. 
Agricultural reading is becoming pretty 
general now-a-days among larmers. I rejoice 
to see it. It bespeaks a thrilt, honorable in it- 
self, and lending to much good. It cannot lail 
in the end, to raise the standard of the plow to 
its legitimate place among the other callings of 
the land. 
But agricultural reading should mostly be 
practical, not merely theoretical. Pacts and 
experiments should be detailed by the observer 
and experimenter himsell, together with the re- 
sults that follow'. 
These agricultural papers should be careful- 
ly preserved and kept on file, and, at the close of 
the volume, stitched ; and thus, with the help of 
an index, they become a book of reference, at 
hand and convenient at all times. A neat and 
careful farmer will attend to this. 
Farmers should respect themselves ; should 
educate liieinselves, their sons and their daugh- 
ters to become uselul and happy at home on the 
farm ; should make the farm and home the nur- 
sery of great thoughts and good actions. The 
great and beloved Washington \va« n fanner 
and delighted in farming. The seeds ol his 
after greatness were sown while in his youth, 
on the farm. Though perhaps no one of us is 
destined to become a great Wshington, yet we 
can all become Zi^ilZc Washingtons by the prac- 
tice of virtue, the love of country, and a mind 
trained to noble patriotism. So mote it be. 
I said agricultural reading has beconre pretty 
general at this day among farmers. Twenty- 
five years ago it was not so. Few agricultural 
papers were then published, and religious and 
political papers at that time introduced little or 
nothing on the subject of farming into their c®- 
lumns. But how is it now? Scores of papers 
in every part of our country have come to life 
devoted principally and ostensibly to the cause 
ol farming; besides, all other papers contain 
more or less agricultural reading matter in 
them. This augurs a living and growing inte- 
rest in the cause of the farmer. Let the farmer 
rejoice at the prospect before and all around 
him. Yea, I say let him look up and rejoice, 
and persevere, and hope for the consnuimation 
of all laudable good in his behalf. 
A taste for reading is of inestimable value 
to larmers as well as to other classes of men. 
Now persons that have not a love for reading 
and mental improvement can estimate its value 
in the journey of life, especially as old age 
draws on. Addison, the great English moral- 
ist of the seventeenth century, has told us a 
taste for reading and the cultivation ol the 
mind naturally render old age cheerlul and hap- 
py. Think of this, reader, especially if you 
are young. Who would not be cheerful and 
happy when they grow old ! 
It has long been my anxious desire to see 
farmers every where more intelligent, more ex- 
alted and more worthy the station they occupy 
in this great and goodly republic. Well would 
it be for our wide extended realm, should a no- 
ble, virtuous, intelligent yeomanry arise and 
boldly stand forth to sway our country’s destiny 
against demagoguism and the hand that would 
corrupt and lead astray from the good old paths 
of the founders of republicanism and the rights 
of man. 
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. 
• * » e • • * 
A bold peasantry, their country’s pride. 
When once destroyed, can jjever be supplied.” 
Respectfully, B.F. Wilbur. 
Piscataquis Co., Me., August 24, 1846. 
From the Albany Cultivator. - 
Neatness in Farming. 
We have somewhere heard the remark that 
with the good farmer every thing gives way to 
his busine.ss — that utility is all, and appearance 
nothing; hence you are not to expect neatness 
about his dwelling, his door-yard being cut up 
into mud by the lurm wagon and the manure 
cart, contiguity ot barn, pig pens, and kitchen, 
such as convenience, and no freedom from the 
peculiar odors of hog yard and rich manure 
heap, may dictate. 
Now, to speak bluntly, this is all nonsense. 
It so happens that in farming, neatness and 
thrift almost invariably go together. The same 
love of order which prompts the farmer to clear 
his yard ol broken barrels, old hoops, fragments 
of boards, and sticks of wood, and whatever else 
defaces and defiles his premises — also prompts 
him to have a place tor every thing and every 
thing in its place, which is calculated to bear 
upon real and substantial profit. 
Some of the very best farmers with whom we 
are acquainted — whose eminent success and 
heavy profits separate them in this respect in 
bold distinctness from the rest of their neighbors 
— are patterns of neatness; and the touch of 
their hand in the expulsion of every kind of 
nuisance is visible all over their farms. Their 
door yards show that the master is ” at home ;” 
the barn yard, which is not so near the house 
that all the butter and cheese manufactured is 
flavored with the effluvia, exhibits the same 
neatness, even, where all the refuse of other 
places is collected for enriching in due time the 
rest of the farm. A farmer of ouracquaintance, 
with 160 acres, in whose farm-yard we could 
scarcely ever discover a wisp of straw in the 
wrong place, remarked, “ O, I don’t attempt to 
make a great deal from ray larm — I expend so 
much in improvements, that ray clear profits 
are only about a thousand dollars a year. An- 
other of those neat larmers in whose field cockle, 
docks and chess obtain no foothold, nor along 
whose fences a solitary elder-bush or nettle is 
ever seen, raised twenty-seven hundred dollars 
worth ol farm produce at the prices of 1844, and 
both of these farmers live in Western New 
York, where prices are comparatively low, en- 
tirely away from the peculiar advantages of 
market which nearness to great cities gives. 
Now, let no one say that these remarks are 
made at the wrong season of the year, and that 
nothing can be done for neatness and order in 
the winter. The same general rule, in some 
shape or variation, has an almost infinite num- 
ber of applications. The care of domestic ani- 
mals in winter, needs pre-eminently the appli- 
cation of this rule. No animal can thrive well 
in the midst of dirt. Even a pig does not love 
dtrt for dirt’s sake— he only happens to be so' 
much ol a philosopher, or rather stoic, that he 
is willing to endure dirt for the sake ol a soft 
and cool bed in summer; for it has been found 
that these animals thrive better and fatten much 
faster when kept clean and well curried. 
Horses and cattle are often neglected in clean- 
liness. We have actually known some who 
did not clean the manure from horse stables for 
months, allowing it gradually to thicken under 
foot with the accumulating litter till a foot in 
thickness — and reasoning doubtless as the boy 
did who combed bis hair once a month, and 
was astonished that such torture and trouble 
from the operation could be endured daily by 
other people. A farmer who does his own 
chores, can hardly afford to keep his horses so 
finely as the gentleman of wealth, who has a 
man for no other purpose ; but every one should 
have his stable floor perfectly clean at least 
twice a day, once in the morning, and once at 
night, before littering, and oftener would be bet- 
ter. the oftener done the easier accomplished. 
There are many other particulars where neat- 
ness may be attended to in winter. Gate hinges 
and gate fastenings often need repair, that they 
may shut like clock-work ; boards become loose 
on old barns and board fences; tools become 
awkward for use and need remodelling or re- 
newing; and many other small matters, in 
doors and out, require attention. We are a- 
ware that to many of our readers, who are al- 
ready examples for others, such hints as the 
preceding are not applicable — to such we lean 
say that they need not read them-.-like the man 
who chisseled on the stone at the fording place, 
“ When the water comes to this stone it is un- 
safe to cross.” 
Fertile Soils* 
The efforts of science have already succeed- 
ed in demonstrating in the most satisfactory 
manner, that in order to be fertile, a soil must 
contain all the mineral ingredients which en- 
ter into the plants intended to be grown upon 
it, and under such circumstances, and in such 
condition as to render them easily available 
by the roots ot plants; and in sufficient quanti- 
ty to ensure a supply, by some judicious 
and economical system of cultivation, during 
the growth of the crop, whatever it may be. 
It should also be so constituted as to ren- 
der it easily permeable by the roots — con- 
sisting of a due admixture of impalpable 
matter, with a quantum sufficit of larger 
particles, so that it may possess the ad- 
vantage of porosity, and admit the fructifying 
agents without obstruction to assist in the per- 
fection and maturation ol the crop. There 
should also be present in the soil a due propor- 
tion of matter capable ot undergoing chemical 
changes, and intermixed therewith, a supply of 
organic particles, capable of decomposition 
through the agency ot air and water. 
