THE CULTIVATOR 
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NO. 3, WASHINGTON-ST. ALBANY, N. Y. SEPTEMBER, 1838. 
No. 7. 
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_ TH E C V JLT i V ATO U . _ 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AM) THE MIND. 
Rules and Suggestions in Husfeaudry. 
We shall now proceed to give, agreeable to the 
promise in our last number, some rules and sugges¬ 
tions in husbandry, of general application, to enable 
farmers, and particularly novices in the art, to judge 
of the character and qualities of their soil—ol its 
adaptation to particular crops—of the causes of its 
deterioration—and of the means of perpetuating its 
fertility; or, if worn out or impoverished, of re¬ 
storing it to its pristine vigor. The facts and sug¬ 
gestions which we shall give are the results of our 
reading and our practice ; and though they may not 
in all cases prove to be sound, we think that in the 
main they will be found to be so. 
1. The essential elements of a good soil, are sand, 
clay, lime, and vegetable or organic remains. Mag¬ 
nesia, iron, and other matters, are often found blend¬ 
ed with the preceding; but, in general, they are not 
considered as exercising a great influence on its fer¬ 
tility, except they exist in more than ordinary pro¬ 
portions. 
2. The presence of sand, clay, and vegetable mat¬ 
ter, in a soil, is deemed essential to all crops; and 
lime, in some of its forms, is considered indispensa¬ 
ble to many crops, and particularly to wheat. 
3. The presence of sand and clay is readily de¬ 
tected by the experienced eye; that of vegetable 
matter by the consistency and colour of the soil; 
and that of carbonate of lime, by drying a portion 
of soil, and pouring upon it some acid, having a 
stronger affinity for the base than the carbonic acid, 
as muriatic acid, or even strong vinegar—if it con¬ 
tains lime, effervescence will ensue—the proportion 
may be ascertained by the modes of analysis we have 
published. 
4. Sand is the most essential in the earthy ingre¬ 
dients of a soil, and most preponderates; though 
where it exceeds eighty per cent, the soil is virtually 
barren. Clay is next in proportion; but where it 
greatly preponderates, the soil becomes stubborn, 
is hard to be worked, and more or less unproductive. 
Lime exists in the smallest proportion; and from 
two to ten per cent of the upper or tillable stratum 
is deemed sufficient for all the purposes of profita¬ 
ble husbandry. When in excess, it induces barren¬ 
ness. A calcareous soil is considered conducive to 
the health of the neighborhood. Organic matter, 
that is, vegetable or animal, is indispensable in a 
soil. It is the food of plants. Yet even this is often 
found in excess, as in peat earth, and is often infertile 
till mixed with earthy ingredients, or brought in 
contact with fermenting materials. 
5. When an excess is discovered to exist of sand, 
clay, lime or vegetable matter, the fault may be re¬ 
medied by an admixture of the deficient element or 
elements. When one of the elements is found want¬ 
ing, it may be supplied by art. Thus a load of clay 
upon an arid sand,—or load of sand upon a stubborn 
clay,—or a few bushels of lime, dr marl, or ashes, 
upon a soil deficient in calcareous earth, are often 
of more ultimate service than a load of barn yard 
dung. But, 
6. Both dung and lime are consumed by the grow¬ 
ing crops ; and if the crops are carried off, the land 
must be periodically replenished with these, or it 
will often become deficient in these material ele¬ 
ments of fertility. 
7. The sand and clay of the soil, may be likened, 
in their offices, to the stomach of the animal; the 
lime and salts to the gastric juices which assist to 
dissolve the food in the animal stomach—and to 
the condiments, as salt, pepper, &c. which we em¬ 
ploy to stimulate and aid the organs and process of 
digestion;—and the organic matter in the soil, to 
the food itself, which feeds and nourishes the ani¬ 
mal system. 
8. If the crops grown upon a soil are permitted to 
rot upon, and return to it again, its fertility is not 
impaired, but improved. Nothing is lost, but some¬ 
thing gained, from the fertilizing influence of the 
atmosphere. But when all the crop is carried off, 
and nothing returned, deterioration must take place 
—the vegetable food must undergo a continued di¬ 
minution. This is a plain exposition of the cause 
of lands wearing out; and at the same time it ex¬ 
plains the necessity of applying manures to keep up 
their fertility. 
9. All the elements of a good soil being present, 
its fertility, and consequent profit, will in a measure 
depend upon its exemption from an excess of water, 
which, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master. 
This excess may arise from spouts and springs burst¬ 
ing up from below, or from surface waters, where 
the ground is level, or nearly so, settling and re¬ 
posing upon a tenacious, subsoil, or from waters 
flowing from higher grounds. Hence the impor¬ 
tance of draining. We do not know of any farm 
crop which thrives well upon a soil that is habitually 
wet, either upon its surface, or within the natural 
range of its roots. Water-meadows and rice profit 
by periodical floodings ; but they are injured by ha¬ 
bitual wetness. 
10. Fertility depends much, also, upon the quali¬ 
ty and properties of the subsoil. If this is defective, 
or comes too near the surface, its faults may be cor¬ 
rected, and the tilth deepened, by bringing it up, 
in small portions at a time, with the plough, to the 
ameliorating influence of the atmosphere, and by 
blending it with the- upper stratum. 
11. If a soil, under proper management, does not 
return good crops, or if the crops are found annually 
to diminish, it is a sure indication that there is a de¬ 
ficiency in one of the primary elements of a good 
soil, that the subsoil has a malign influence, or that 
there is an excess of water. It is the province of 
the manager to search out the cause of the evil, and 
to apply the proper remedy, be it lime, manure, 
drainage or a deeper tilth. 
12. Grain crops are the greatest exhausters of the 
fertility of soils, on account of their narrow sys¬ 
tem of leaves, and the great quantity of nutriment 
they extract from it to mature their seeds. The re¬ 
mark extends to the narrow-leaved grasses, con¬ 
verted into hay, when they are permitted to ripen 
their seeds in the field. 
13. Indian com, tobaccd and beans may be em¬ 
braced in the second class of exhausting crops ; for 
although they have broad leaves, and are supposed 
to derive much of their nourishment from the at¬ 
mosphere, they are nevertheless gross feeders, and 
are bulky crops, and leave very little upon the soil 
to compensate for what they take from it. But 
great economy in feeding these crops may be effect¬ 
ed by applying to them the long manure of the yard 
and stables, instead of summer yarding it, as ma¬ 
ny farmers are wont to do. These crops will feed 
upon what is otherwise lost in the yard, the gaseous 
matters. These afford exactly the food that the 
crops named want, and at the very time they want it. 
14. Roots come next in the order of exhausting 
crops; but they compensate, in a measure, by the 
ameliorating influence they have upon the soil—in 
dividing, pulverizing and freeing it from weeds—by 
their roots and the culture they demand. 
15. Green crops, that is, clover, buckwheat, rye, 
oats, &c. ploughed under as food for plants, are en¬ 
riching crops, and powerful auxiliaries to the fold- 
yard, but they are too seldom resorted to for this 
purpose. 
16. Depasturing with cattle, and particularly with 
sheep, enriches a soil. According to Yan Thaer, it 
adds 20 per cent annually to the fertility of an ordi¬ 
nary soil, probably for a limited period. This re¬ 
sults from the fact, that the crop is returned to the 
soil, in the droppings and urine of the animals which 
graze it. 
17. Lime and clay are essential in a wheat soil. 
Indian com delights in a rich, dry sand loam. 
Turnips excel on dry sandy soils. Rye is impatient 
of wet. Barley does best on a clay loam, as do 
beets, carrots and peas. Oats and potatoes find a 
congenial berth in cool moist grounds, though for 
the latter the surface stratum should be light, or 
mellow. Of the grasses, the tap-rooted, as clover, 
lucern, &c. require a deep soil, permeable to their 
long roots, and free from water ; the fibrous-rooted, 
as the tall-oat, orchard, &c. thrive upon soils that 
are shallower; and the rough-stalked meadow, red- 
top, bent, and some of the festuca family are con¬ 
genial to, and often natural in, moist or swampy 
grounds. The timothy, or meadow cat’s-tail, the 
main dependence for winter forage, in the northern 
states, adapts its roots, it is said, to its location— 
being fibrous-rooted upon dry, and bulbous-rooted 
upon moist grounds—and therefore adapted to any 
situation. 
18. The natural fertility of a farm cannot be kept 
up, or increased, where arable and mixed husband¬ 
ry prevail, from the resources of the farm stock, 
without resort to an alternation, or change of crops. 
Although the diminution of fertility may be imper¬ 
ceptible, in some extraordinary cases—and al- 
.though some soils seem naturally and peculiarly 
adapted to certain crops,—yet where the same crop 
is grown on one piece of ground in successive years, 
deterioration as certainly goes on as the sun shines 
by day. Whether, according to the modern theory 
of certain European philosophers, and men of high re¬ 
pute, the excrementitious matter thrown into the 
soil by a growing crop is poisonous to its species ;— 
or whether, as we mantain, each species requires 
and exhausts, or partially exhausts, a specific food 
in the soil, suited to its particular wants,—we will 
not now stop to inquire ; but it is a fact established 
by general experience, that an annual change of 
crops upon a field, while under tillage, tends very 
much to economise is fertility, and to increase the 
profits of the labor bestowed upon it. Hence, 
19. It has been laid down as a sound rule in farm¬ 
ing, that two white, or grain, or culmiferous crops, 
should not be made to succeed each other in the 
same field ; but that each of these should be alter¬ 
nated with, or followed by, a green, a grass, a root 
or a leguminous crop 
20. Where the soil of a farm will admit of it, a 
good coui'se is to alternate, 1, roots or Indian corn, 
with long manure, upon the sod ; 2, grain, with 
grass seeds ; 3, grass for two years. The poorer 
the soil, the oftener should it be returned to grass, 
particularly to clover and pasture. 
21. Geologists refer to three distinct formations 
as constituting the crust of the earth—the primitive, 
containing little or no lime, or org-anic remains: 
the transition, containing lime and organic re¬ 
maps ;—and the secondary, abounding extensively 
in both of these elements of fertility. Their natu¬ 
ral relative fertility is in the reverse order in which 
they are named, the secondary being best, and em¬ 
bracing most of the great basin of the Mississippi and 
the country drained by its tributary streams. We 
say nothing of alluvial formations, made by the 
ocean and streams. These partake of the character 
of the country from which they an/ brought, and 
are more or less fertile, according \n the fertility of 
the districts from which their soil is derived, and 
the force of the currents by which the deposites 
have been made—a rapid current leaving only the 
coarser or heavier materials, while the lighter and 
richer matters do not subside until the current be¬ 
comes slow and less agitated. A sluggish current, 
therefore, deposites the richest soil. 
22. The three great formations which we have 
mentioned, possess, it is well known, characteristics 
different from each other. They grow, naturally, 
many plants peculiar to each, and they are adapted 
to different branches of husbandry, or to different 
farm crops. The primitive will not generally grow 
good wheat; but is suited to grass, oats, potatoes, 
&c. The transition is adapted to natural grasses, 
and to most of the arable crops, particularly to the 
cereal class; and the secondary to the cultivated 
grasses, to roots, and particularly to wheat,* 
* An able writer in the Edinburgh Quarterly Journal of 
Agriculture, in reference to these formations,, terms the primi¬ 
tive, which it seems comprises the most elevated lands in 
Scoiland, the region of heath and coarse herbage; the transi¬ 
tion, the natural region of the grasses; and the secondary the 
region of cultivated grasses, and particularly adapted to ara- 
ble and alternate husbandry. He assigns to each a particular 
and distinct breed of cattle. To the first, or higher region, a 
thick haired, small hardy breed; to the second or middle re¬ 
gion, those of larger size; and to the thiid, or lower region, 
