AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
105 
Where Did It Come From? 
The following interesting experiment we have 
stated in an occasional agricultural address, and 
have perhaps already given it in the American 
Agriculturist, but it is worth repeating. Two 
hundred pounds of earth were dried in an oven 
and weighed, and afterwards put into a large 
earthenware vessel, and a willow tree weighing 
5 lbs. planted therein. During five years the 
tree was watered with pure rain or distilled 
water; and to prevent any addition of earth or 
dust, the vessel was covered with a metal plate, 
perforated with holes so small as to admit air 
only. At the end of five years the tree was 
found to weigh 1694 lbs. The annual crops of 
fallen leaves were not taken into account. The 
earth was then baked and weighed as at first, 
and had lost only 2 ounces. Whence ivas derived 
the 164 lbs. of woody fiber, bark, 
roots, etc.? They must have come 
to the plant from the atmos¬ 
phere, and the rain water, 
through the medium of the 
leaves, roots, and hark. We 
see all around us similar ex¬ 
amples. Yonder old field of 
ten acres has annually pro¬ 
duced at least one tun per acre 
of grass, straw, grain, corn, etc., 
for a hundred years, or a thous¬ 
and tuns, (two million pounds!) 
of materials which have been 
carried off and consumed else¬ 
where, while perhaps the only 
addition to the field has been 
less than a quarter tun of seed. 
Yet the field has not sunk 
lower by reason of any loss 
of substance.- Indeed it will weigh more to-day 
than before all this cropping, by nearly so much 
as the weight of the grass roots and black mold 
now in the soil. It has lost a little of soluble 
mineral matter that has been cax-ried into the 
plants by the sap, and left there, either absorbed 
into the substance of the plants as constitu¬ 
ents, or left there by the evaporation of the sap. 
The truth is,'soils do not “wear out.” They 
are the machine in which plants are manufac¬ 
tured from air furnished materials. When the 
plants decay, or are burned, they return the 
matter to the air, which is the great storehouse 
of plant food. The skillful cultivator gathers a 
larger share of this plant material than others. 
The more skillful one not only gathers an annu¬ 
al supply in the form of crops, but he also se¬ 
cures an extra quantity which is stored in the 
soil as an additional stimulus or nourisher of the 
next crop. This he does by sowing clover, or 
seed of other plants which absorb large amounts 
of plant food in the form of leaves, stems, and 
roots; these he turns under, and holds them in 
store for another crop. His soil is thus increased 
in quantity, especially in organic elements 
which adapt it to the production of larger crops. 
In the absence of. home-made yard manure, 
there is no better way to renovate old land, or 
to lighten heavy land, than to plow in green 
clover, or buckwheat, rye, millet, oats, etc. The 
green crops thus mixed with the soil answer 
several purposes. As they decay, they furnish 
richer stores of new food, which nourish and 
strengthen the growing plants, and prepare them 
to absorb more food from the air; by their de¬ 
cay they leave the soil open and porous, admit¬ 
ting more air and warmth into it, and drawing 
off water; and the mold formed by decaying 
vegetables, darkens the soil, making it absorb 
more of the sun’s rays, and thus become warm¬ 
er. Clover, by reason of its abundant leaves, and 
the large amount of nitrogen in its composition, 
is the best green crop to turn under. But where 
the soil is too poor to grow clover, other coarser 
crops, as buckwheat, may be first used to bring 
up the soil to the clover bearing point. Two or 
three crops of buckwheat may be grown and 
turned under in a season. Plaster of Paris is 
generally useful to start clover.—The first days 
of this month (April) should be improved in 
sowing clover seed upon the growing wheat 
and rye. Choose a still, cool morning, when the 
ground is opened with myriads of frost cracks; 
the seeds will drop into these, be well covered 
by the thawing soil, be warmed into active life 
by the spring sun, be shaded by the growing 
grain until rooted, and after harvest will af¬ 
ford considerable pasturage, and the next sea¬ 
son good pasturage, mowing, or green manure. 
Some notices of the qualities and doings of 
these hogs have appeared from time to time in 
past numbers of the Agriculturist, and many in¬ 
quiries concerning them have been received. 
The accompanying sketch engraved from a 
photograph of two of them owned by Paschall 
Morris, exhibit the prominent points of the 
breed—if a distinct breed it may be called. To 
establish a breed a long succession of careful se¬ 
lections from the same family is required. That 
considerable care has been exercised with the 
Chester County hogs is evident; the only point 
of doubt is, whether this has been continued 
long enough to stamp indellibly the character¬ 
istics of the tribe upon all pure-bred animals. 
The frequent breeding of hogs, makes less time 
requisite, than for horses and neat cattle, which 
breed but once a year and require a longer time 
to arrive at maturity. From all accounts, it 
would seem that reasonable care has been 
taken for some twenty years past, and the pres¬ 
ent race, though scattered pretty well over the 
countiy, hold their own; and if not now entitled 
to the claim of a distinctive American Breed, 
they soon will be. We trust breeders will ex¬ 
ercise great care to bring this about. They are 
supposed to have originated some thirty years 
ago, from a cross of an imported Bedfordshire 
boar with,the best common stock of Chester 
County, Pa. All the notices of them that we have 
received or seen have been in their favor. If 
any one not prejudiced by other interests, has 
anything to say against them let us hear it.- 
The claims of the Chester County hogs for pub¬ 
lic favor are: good constitution, large size, 
length and depth of carcass, smallness of bone 
and offal, quiet habit, and well larded inside. 
The color is pure white, well coated with silky 
hair. Any black hairs, or the least variation 
from white is regarded as a mark of impurity. 
Value of “ Blood ” in Animals. 
It has often been shown in the columns of 
the American Agriculturist that, in the improve¬ 
ment of all kinds of domestic animals, very 
much depends upon securing the use of well bred 
males. This is pre-eminently true in the breed¬ 
ing of neat cattle, and with this class of stock 
we have the ability, over the whole country, to 
obtain the use of thorough-bred animals. A 
strange prejudice exists against acknowledging 
the fact, every day demonstrated, that grade, 
cross-blood, or “native” bulls, beget calves as 
likely to be bad as good, and upon which we 
can make no sort of calculation 
unless it be in the case of some 
old bulls. We sometimes, but 
rarely, find that a grade bull 
gets excellent stock with great 
uniformity. In this ability to 
propagate good qualities (not 
necessarily his own) he only 
shows the excellence of some 
strain of blood from which 
he is sprung. We do not know 
the fact, however, until his 
progeny are grown. The 
thorough-bred bull, on the con¬ 
trary, marks all his calves after 
his breed and usually also after 
himself. Male animals give to 
their immediate offspring, 
with considerable uniformity, 
muscle, bone, spirit, and ex¬ 
ternal characteristics; and in the thorough¬ 
bred races they impress other characteristics 
usually derived from the dam, particularly 
milking qualities. We all doubtless have know¬ 
ledge of families of milkers of the old na¬ 
tive stock in which, for generation after genera¬ 
tion, the cows looked alike and milked alike; so 
much so that “ Old Brindle’s ” heifer calf was 
sure to be raised, and we were almost morally 
certain that in the course of time all the old fa¬ 
vorite’s good qualities would be developed in her; 
the influence of the scrub bull, her sire, not be¬ 
ing taken into account at all. Now-a-days, we 
see the progeny of Jersey and Ayrshire bulls 
with good, bad, and indifferent cows almost uni¬ 
formly taking after the breed of their sires, in 
milking qualities as well as in characteristics 
logically expected from the sire. 
We argue then, and urge the consideration 
upon our readers, that the most direct, feasible, 
economical, not to say the only available way for 
most of the farmers of this country to improve 
their stock is by the use of thorough-bred males. 
Evidently, an animal is not thorough-bred when 
he is only three-fourths or seven-eighths pure 
blood, yet he may be handsomer and every way 
a better animal than any thorough-bred in the 
neighborhood. Still, you can not be sure that his 
calves will be good; while even a very inferior 
looking thorough-bred bull is almost absolutely 
certain to get first class calves from grade cows. 
Our breeders of thorough-bred cattle, of all 
the improved breeds, commit a great error in 
holding their bull calves at so high a price as to 
prevent sales, and finally, as is often done, malt¬ 
ing stags of them rather than sell them at a low 
price. If they would even give away the bull 
calves, which they do not wish to keep and 
which are not worth a very high price, on condi- 
