54 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
SSB 
cure these roots from the frosts of winter; and yet 
the labor and expense required for this purpose are 
perhaps no greater than we expend in securing our 
grain and forage—if they are as great. Where cel¬ 
lars are not at command, or not adequate, these roots 
may all be securely preserved in pits, in dry situations, 
due precaution being had to covering and ventilation. 
It is the novelty of the labor, rather than the amount, 
and a want of practical knowledge and confidence of 
success, which intimidates and deters us. We do 
save our potatoes, and we can save other roots in like 
manner. Assuming the average product of hay at a 
ton and a half to two tons per acre, and of beets and 
ruta baga at 600 bushels—and allowing a bushel and a 
half of the latter, (90 lbs.) to be equal, for farm stock, 
to twenty pounds of hay, an acre of the roots will go 
as far in the economy of feeding as nearly three acres 
of meadow, to say nothing of the tops, which will go 
far to pay the extra expense of cultivating the roots— 
while the ground in one case is ameliorated and im¬ 
proved, and in the other impoverished. These roots, 
besides, may be used as a substitute for grain, for 
working cattle, and for pigs. The three acres of 
grass gives less than 9,000 pounds to the manure 
ard, while the one acre of ruta baga, or beets, gives 
6,000, or four times as much as three acres of grass 
land. 
VI. SUBSTITUTION OF FALLOW CROPS FOR NAKED FAL¬ 
LOWS. 
Fallowing is the mode of preparing land, generally 
green sward, by ploughing it a considerable time be¬ 
fore it is ploughed for wheat and rye, to be sown in 
autumn. A naked fallow is such as receives no inter¬ 
mediate crop between the first ploughing and seeding 
for the main crop: a fallow crop is one that inter¬ 
venes between these two processes. In England, 
fallows are generally broken up in autumn, receive 
repeated ploughings during the ensuing summer, and 
are sown in autumn, or cropped with turnips, and 
sown the third year with barley. In the United 
States, naked fallows are more often broken up in 
June or July, receive repeated ploughings, and are 
sown in September. For fallow crops, old swards are 
broken up in autumn, and clover lays in the spring; 
the first receives one or more ploughings in the spring, 
and immediately after the seeds which are to, consti¬ 
tute the fallow crop. Clover lays receive the fallow 
crop upon the first furrow, or with but one ploughing. 
Naked fallows, in England, occupy the ground a year ; 
and if they are sown with winter tares or rye, as they 
often are, to be fed off in the spring, they are termed 
bastard fallows. With us fallow grounds lay idle but 
part of a season. 
There is no agricultural writer of note, and very 
few good farmers, who now contend for the propriety 
of naked fallows, except on stiff clays, or wet grounds, 
which can only be worked in the summer, and this for 
the purpose only of being able to clean such soils from 
root weeds. We subjoin two or three quotations in 
corroboration of this fact: 
“Fallowing was necessary as long as grains only, all 
of which exhaust the soil, were cultivated; during the 
intervals of tilling the fields, a variety of herbs grew on 
them, which offered food for animals, and the roots of 
which, buried in the soil by the plough, furnished a 
great part of the necessary manure. But at this day, 
when we have succeeded in establishing the cultivation 
of a great variety of roots, and artificial grasses, the 
system of fallowing can be no longer supported by the 
shadow of a good reason. The ease with which fodder 
may be cultivated, furnishes the means of supporting 
an increased number of animals; these in their turn 
supply manure and labor; and the farmer is no longer 
under the necessity of allowing his lands to be fallow.” 
— Chaptal. 
“ It is already acknowledged, that it is only upon wet 
soils, or, in other words, upon lands unfit for the turnip 
husbandry, that a plain summer fallow is necessary.”—• 
New Edin. Ency. 
“As there is only one good reason for fallowing, 
namely, to destroy weeds,—and as this can be done 
full as well by fallow crops, that is, by crops that re¬ 
quire frequent hoeing and cleaning, during their growth, 
no fallows ought to be permitted in a good system of 
agriculture.”— T. Cooper. 
We have quoted in the last number of our fourth 
volume, the practical example of the late Chancellor 
Livingston, showing an increased profit, of nearly two 
hundred per cent, resulting from substituting fallow 
crops for naked fallows, besides an increase of cattle 
food, upon one hundred acres of arable land, of sixty- 
five tons, and the manure from sixty-five cattle, ■which 
this extra food would keep. In pages 88 and 104 of 
the same volume, we have given Greig and Beatson’s 
systems of managing clay farms, in which naked fal¬ 
lows are dispensed with, and the profits doubled, by 
substituting fallow crops. These evidences might be 
greatly multiplied were it necessary; but we have so 
many examples and illustrations in every quarter of 
©ur country, that he who will may profit by his own 
observation and inquiry. The expense of the sum¬ 
mer fallows may be saved, and a very valuable extra 
crop obtained, by the new mode of practice. 
In regard to what are the best fallow crops I This 
will depend much upon the soil. Upon stiff clays, 
oats and peas are recommended, which although not 
cleansing crops, succeed well upon an undecomposed 
sod. Potatoes also answer well; and if they do not 
ripen early enough for winter gram, they prepare the 
ground remarkably well for spring wheat. Clays 
should be broken up in autumn, if intended for a fal¬ 
low crop, that the frost may break down and pulve¬ 
rize the soil, and that the decomposition of the sod 
may commence earlier in the spring. The late John 
Lorrain, of Pennsylvania, who was an excellent prac¬ 
tical farmer, as well as a gentleman of science, re¬ 
commended, that in ploughing for grain, after a fallow 
crop, the furrow be supreficial, so as not to turn up 
the vegetable matter of the sod, but to leave it where 
the roots of the ensuing crop will most need it. Up¬ 
on light soils, Indian corn, beans, peas, potatoes, tur¬ 
nips, or other roots, constitute good fallow crops, par¬ 
ticularly preparatory to spring wheat and barley. 
CONCLUSION. 
We have gone over the ground we proposed to ex¬ 
amine. We have endeavored to explain what we 
mean by the New System of Husbandry —to develope 
its principles, and to show why, and wherefore, it is 
superior to the old or common system. We have, 
we think, demonstrated,— 
1. That the fertility of the farm may be kept up, 
and augmented, by the manures it can be made to 
furnish; 
2. That the condition of the farm may be much im¬ 
proved, by thorough draining; 
3. That the capacities of the farm,, can be fully de¬ 
veloped only by good tillage ; 
4. That the profits of the farm, are materially aug¬ 
mented by alternating crops, and a system of mixed 
husbandry; 
5. That the cattle food and manures of the farm, the 
main sources of fertility and profit, may be greatly in¬ 
creased by the cultivation of roots ; 
6. That the labors of the farm, may be economised, 
and its products further increased, by substituting fal¬ 
low crops for naked fallows. 
And finally, that were these several improvements 
generally introduced into our agricultural practice, 
they would render our farmers more independent, 
bring industry into better repute, and essentially pro¬ 
mote the prosperity and happiness of all classes of so¬ 
ciety. 
There is no doubt that most of our impoverished 
farms may, under the system of management we have 
been describing, and with the auxiliary and available 
aid of lime, marl, gypsum, swamp earth, ashes, &c. 
be progressively improved in fertility 7- , and rendored 
productive and profitable. We have the strongest 
grounds for this belief. The like has been done in 
Great Britain, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in 
France. Worn-out lands have there been renovated 
and rendered very valuable. They have been so in the 
United States. They are now undergoing this im¬ 
provement in the valley of the Hudson. The partial 
introduction of the New Husbandry, has, within a few 
years, doubled the surplus agricultural products of 
most of the counties between Albany and New-York ; 
and yet the improvement has there been but begun. 
The same management which our subject suggests 
for the renovation of old lands, will perpetuate the 
fertility of those which have been newly brought un¬ 
der culture. Although the soils of the great seconda¬ 
ry formation of the west will not so soon become im¬ 
poverished as those of primitive and transition forma¬ 
tions ; and though fertility may be more readily re¬ 
stored to them, when it has become exhausted—yet 
the same general laws govern in all. Deterioration 
will progress in all soils which are cropped, unless 
there is returned to them, in the form of manure, some 
equivalent for what is being constantly carried off. 
The Conductor of the Cultivator will make it his 
business to continue to collect and publish practical 
instructions in rural affairs, and particularly in the im¬ 
provements which it has been our object in this arti¬ 
cle to describe and recommend ; in the performance 
of which, he respectfully invites the co-operation of 
practical farmers, in the various departments of hus¬ 
bandry, and in the different sections of our country. 
Like Produces Like. 
This is true, whether applied to animals or vegeta¬ 
bles. It is a law of nature, and therefore immutable. 
If we would multiply a choice breed of animals, a va¬ 
luable variety of plants, or an elegant flower, we must 
take care to breed from the individuals in greatest 
esteem. Although we may be considered trespassing 
upon hallowed ground, we will venture to remark, 
that these truths are not unworthy of consideration 
in matrimonial alliances. Constitutional defects, in¬ 
tellectual as well as physical, are often hereditary in 
man; and an alliance between two persons disposed 
to pulmonary affections, for instance, will almost cer¬ 
tainly entail this class of diseases upon their offspring. 
We will not enlarge upon this branch of the subject, 
but apply our remarks more particularly to the im¬ 
provement of farm stock and farm crops. 
But we may be asked, in the outset, why, if our 
position be true, do not the seeds of our apples, pears, 
plums, &c. produce the same fruits as the parent tree? 
Because, we answer, these fruits, like animals, have 
two parents, a male and a female parent, which sel¬ 
dom belong to the same variety; and having a parent 
of two varieties, or breeds, it necessarily follows, that 
the offspring will not exactly resemble either, but par¬ 
take, more or less, of the qualities of both. In most 
of our orchard and garden fruits, the sexual organs 
exist in the same flower; yet, from the varieties that 
are associated in the same ground, the female organ 
is liable to be impregnated with the pollen of the male 
organs of half a dozen other kinds. We have seen 
this strikingly illustrated in an experiment with the 
Siberian crab. Seeds of this fruit, which grew in an 
orchard of other apple trees, produced more than 
twenty new varieties, all partaking, in some measure, 
of the peculiar properties of the female parent, and 
yet none of them exactly resembling it. Yet there 
is no doubt but the seeds of the Siberian crab, or of 
any other variety of fruit, completely isolated, during 
the season of blooming, from all other trees of a like 
genus, would produce fruits resembling precisely the 
parent. 
The practice of crossing breeds of animals has led 
to the great improvement of our farm stock. The 
new varieties of wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, Indian 
corn, &c. spring from th accidental crossing of two or 
more old varieties. They arrest the attention of some 
observing individual, are preserved, propagated, and 
come into repute for their prolific or other remarkable 
properties. We have had a field of China beans adulte¬ 
rated by growing in contiguity with the small white and 
pole beans. Although every bean planted the second 
year, was to appearance a pure China bean, in their 
growth many of them sent up runners, and when ga¬ 
thered, a fifth part of the crop was either white or 
pole beans, with the pollen of which latter the blos¬ 
soms of the China beans of the preceding year had 
become impregnated. The artificial crossing of fruits 
was first practised by Knight about the beginning of 
the present century. He began with the pea, with 
wheat, and the strawberry, and has extended his ex¬ 
periments successfully to the apple, pear, peach, &c. 
The varieties of our Indian corn have been greatly 
multiplied by incidental fecundation; and we heard a 
naturalist insist, the other day, that all the varieties 
of this grain had sprung from two species. It is to 
this natural tendency to mixture, in the cabbage, tur¬ 
nip and radish families, and the heedlessness of Ame¬ 
rican gardeners in seeding different species and varie¬ 
ties in the same ground, that foreign seeds of these 
plants are in higher repute than our own—the prac¬ 
tice in Europe being to seed each kind by itself, re¬ 
mote from any other species of the family. 
From the preceding considerations it must be ap¬ 
parent, that if a farmer would have good stock, he 
should breed from only the best individuals; and that 
if he has not good individuals he should procure them, 
at any reasonable price; that he should select and 
breed from those which are best adapted to his 
grounds and his business—whether it be for the mar¬ 
ket, for the dairy, for labor, or for wool. 
That if he would have good crops, he must select 
his seed with care; and having obtained that which 
is good, he should keep it pure, by not permitting it 
to become fecundated and deteriorated by growing 
along side of inferior kinds, and by carefully preserv¬ 
ing the best samples to breed from. 
We beg to refer to the communication of Gideon 
B. Smith, for an illustration of the crossing process, 
in vegetables, which came to hand after this article 
was written. 
Hints for the Orchard. 
The slopes of hills are better for the apple or¬ 
chard than flat or level surfaces—because the trees 
are not so liable to be injured by stagnant waters, 
upon the soil or subsoil. Upon a northern aspect, 
the fruit is not so liable to be injured by late vernal 
frosts, as upon a southern aspect—because, the blos¬ 
soms are later in developing. A rich soil will give 
the largest and fairest fruit; a dry and warm one the 
richest, and bring it to the earliest maturity. The 
soil should be sufficiently rich to encourage a mode¬ 
rate growth, but not so rich as to stimulate the plant 
to premature exertion. It is better to have trees ob¬ 
tain a fair size before they fruit much, as fruit ex¬ 
hausts the nutriment of the plant, and prevents 
growth; and a precocious tree is generally a short 
lived one. The distance between apple trees should 
vary from 25 to 40 feet, according to the habits of the 
tree—whether spreading much or growing upright, 
the quality of the soil, and the other uses for which the 
ground is required. The distance may be lessened 
between the rows, by planting in the quincunx form, 
