THE CULTIVATOR. 
195 
which produces the greatest quantity of green food 
for sheep and other beasts, and which they should eat 
on the ground. 
This prepares the land for a crop of grain or corn 
for the use of man. The alternate system of grain 
and green food for stock, is that which never should 
be deviated from. 
It produces not only a much greater return of corn 
and other food for the use of man, but also a much 
greater quantity of green food and straw which sheep 
and other animals consume, and gives at the same 
time a proportionally greater return of vegetable and 
animal manure. By this means the farmer has not 
only the power of reproducing the same quantity of 
grain, &c. but of increasing the capability of the soil 
to produce an additional quantity. The production of 
turnips and green food for sheep, gives perhaps ten 
times the quantity of manure, that the old system did. 
Increased productiveness given to the soil is genuine 
agricultural improvement. 
Crops of corn, as food for man, alternating with crops 
of vegetables, as food for sheep or other stock, is the 
foundation of all good husbandry. 
Such a mode of culture should be adopted as will 
not only increase the quantity of manure, but hasten 
its decomposition, and thus increase the productive¬ 
ness of the soil by raising an increased quantity of 
food for sheep to be again consumed on the land that 
produced it; and when the soil is thin, poor, light 
sand, this may be repeated year after year, on the 
same land, whether it be arable or pasture. The con¬ 
sumption of the produce by sheep on the land is the 
best, the cheapest, and the most effectual means of 
improving pasture, as well as arable land. 
Vetches, rye, clover, and buckwheat, are some¬ 
times grown on land and ploughed in as a manure ; 
but if these crops were converted into a manure by 
passing them through the stomach of sheep, the effecis 
produced would not only be much quicker, but of much 
greater value. 
When the farmer is convinced that his corn crops 
are productive just in proportion to the quantify of 
sheep he keeps on his arable land ; and when he is 
experienced in the best mode of cultivating the va¬ 
rieties of gram and vegetables which are best adapted 
to the soil of his farm, he may then calculate with cer¬ 
tainty on the result of his operations. 
As the weeds which grow on the land are the na¬ 
tural plants of the soil, they much sooner feel the in¬ 
fluence of the weather, the manure, and the culture, 
than the artificial crops we cultivate, and consequently 
take the lead of the crop ; we ought therefore to eradi¬ 
cate every weed out of the land, and when once we 
get it clean, to keep it so. 
We should never take a crop of corn, if by taking 
it, we give an opportunity for the weeds to spring up 
in the soil; for this would be only sowing the seeds 
of future labor and expense, as well as incur loss lo 
us in preventing their increase. The repetition of 
corn crops in succession tends to increase the stock 
of weeds in the soil, without giving to the farmer 
either the time or the power to diminish them, and 
their growth necessarily retards or prevents the growth 
of the crop we cultivate ; but the production of green 
crops, such as turnips, potatoes, vetches, and clover, 
gives to the farmer time and power to clean out any 
weeds that may be in the soil; and the growth of these 
crops prepares the land for the produciion of a crop 
of corn. 
It should be remembered, however, that whenever 
the weeds have got ahead of us, we must then have 
recourse to summer fallow to get rid of them. What¬ 
ever gives nourishment and life to weeds would, if no 
weeds were in the ground, give life and nourishment 
to cultivated plants; and that land which has a dry 
porous subsoil is most productive, and much easier 
cultivated than that which has a retentive subsoil; 
therefore if the land have not a porous dry subsoil na¬ 
turally, one should be given to it artificially, and this 
the farmer should do whatever be the expense,—it 
wilt repay him with compound interest. 
Different modes of culture must be adopted on dif¬ 
ferent soils ; for it is evident that the same cause will 
have very different effects upon soils of a different na¬ 
ture. 
The effect produced by rain on clay soils has been 
shown to be very different from tiie effect which it 
produces on sandy soils ; and the effect of drought on 
a dry sandy soil is equally different from the effect 
which it bason a wet clay soil. 
Frost expands the water in the soil about one- 
twelfth; hence during a thaw, the water is contracted 
to its original bulk, leaving the soil in a loose open 
state, and well prepared to receive the influence of 
the atmosphere. Sandy soils are easily penetrated by 
water and air; but clay, unless well pulverized, is im¬ 
penetrable to either. 
The best soil for any kind of plant is that in which 
it naturally grows with most luxuriance ; and a quicker 
repetition of such plants may be made than of those 
to which the soil is not naturally so well adapted. 
Clay soils having a proper mixture of sand and lime 
will produce wheat, beans, clover, and cabbages, in 
the greatest perfection. 
Light sandy loam is best fitted for the production of 
barley, rye, peas, turnips, potatoes, vetches, &c. 
Every different soil requires a peculiar management, 
and a different course of cropping. 
Light sand and gravel are early soils, and should be 
early planted in the spring, that their growth may 
shut out the influence of the sun from the ground at 
an early period of the summer. 
All succulent plants, and those that are not allowed 
to ripen their seed; such as clover, ryegrass, vetches, 
turnips, cabbages, carrots, potatoes, &c. are said to 
receive a great part of their nourishment from the at¬ 
mosphere ; and therefore do less injury to the land 
than wheat, barley, rye, oats, peas, beans, or any of 
the succulent plants when they are allowed to bring 
their seeds to perfection. 
Vetches, peas, and beans, seem only to injure the 
land they grow on when they are permitted to perfect 
their seed; tor if they grow so luxuriantly as to pro¬ 
duce nothing but straw, which is sometimes the case, 
or if, like vetches they be cut green, their growth 
does not injure the land but is an advantage to it; we 
may therefore presume that it is only in ripening the 
seed that the soil is injured by such crops. 
When clover, vetches, turnips, cabbages, &c. are 
produced and consumed on the land without perfect¬ 
ing their seed, the soil is not at all injured by their 
production, and they may be repeated and consumed 
every year not only without the least injury being sus¬ 
tained by the soil, but an actual yearly increase is 
thereby made to its productive powers ; if any one of 
these crops, however, be allowed to perfect its seed 
for two consecutive years on the same soil, the land 
would be injured for many years to come. The in¬ 
ference to be drawn from this fact is, that the soil is 
injured more in producing the seed, than in producing 
the stem and foliage, or leaves. The foliage may re¬ 
ceive more of its nourishment from the air than the 
seeds ; or, the seeds may receive more of their nou¬ 
rishment from the soil than the foliage. 
The injury that land sustains from converting grass 
into hay is, that the product ion of seed either of grass 
or of corn is that which injures the land more than 
the most luxuriant growth of leaves or straw. 
Pasture prevents the production of seeds and en¬ 
courages the growth of the roots, which are thus pro¬ 
moted, and are constantly pushing out in search of 
nourishment all the year round ; so that there is no 
period when they lie dormant, as in the case when 
seed is produced. 
All perennial plants that produce seed lie dormant 
for several months after they have produced it; and 
annual plants, if prevented from yielding their seed, 
either by mowing or pasturing, become biennial or 
even triennial. 
There is a great loss sustained by land from the 
keeping of corn in the straw for a year or two ; as the 
farmer is thereby prevented from keeping stock to con¬ 
sume the straw, and of course the land sustains the 
loss of manure from its non-consumption. 
The adoption of the best rotation of crops will not. 
secure, at all times and under all circumstances, the 
improved result: no ! the rotation must be accom¬ 
panied with the most sedulous attention to the minute 
details of ali the operations, and these must be execut¬ 
ed at the proper tune to insure the result required.— 
Morton fin So ils. 
Young' Men’s Department. 
Hints to Young Farmers.—No. XII. 
SOCIAL AND CIVIL DUTIES. 
Every person of common reflection must be aware, 
that he owes to others, and to society, certain social 
and civil duties, in requital for the kind offices and 
protection which he receives and enjoys from the 
community of which he is a member; and he should 
know, for such we consider to be the indisputable 
fact, that upon the manner in which these duties are 
performed, will materially depend his reputation with 
good men, and the measure of his pure enjoyments 
in life. Hence it is of the first importance, that he 
should fix upon a scale of morals in early life, which 
shall govern in his business transactions, and in his 
intercourse with society. 
Every class in society seems to have a scale of 
morals peculiar to itself, in its business affairs, none 
of which are exactly fitted for general adoption. The 
importing merchant, for instance, thinks it justifiable 
to use deceptive invoices, by which he defrauds the 
revenue of a part of the duties due upon merchandize ; 
while the salesman is valued and rewarded according 
to his tact in extolling his wares to the buyer—in 
giving them a fictitious value. Those who subsist on 
the spoils of office, consider that—“ all is fair in po¬ 
litics”—that “ the end justifies the means.” The 
lawyer encourages litigation, because it is his voca¬ 
tion—his dependence for the wants and the superflui¬ 
ties of life. The physician knows when he gets hold 
of a rich patient, and deems it no breach of morals to 
make him pay well—to pay something for his poor 
neighbor. The parson, even, feels no compunction in 
abandoning his flock to the wolves, and accepting a 
higher salary, when he is persuaded he can be more 
eminently useful to the cause of vital piety. And the 
farmer practices a thousand little devices, to multiply 
his pence, which he would hardly applaud in his neigh¬ 
bor. We do not mean to charge these practices upon 
the whole of the different professions—for there are 
many honorable exceptions in all—we would merely 
intimate that they are besetting sins, human propen¬ 
sities which it requires fixed principles and inflexible 
fortitude to resist and overcome. If once success¬ 
fully indulged in, they are apt to obtain an ascendancy; 
and to become more and more difficult of restraint. 
But there is a precept, of the highest authority, ap¬ 
plicable to all classes and conditions of life—which 
all commend, though few T practise it. It is to “do 
UNTO OTHERS WHAT YOU WOULD THAT THEY SHOULD 
do unto you.” This constitutes the highest rule of 
moral conduct, and its observance confers the highest 
honor—the purest happiness. Adopt it as the rule 
oflife. It will insure you the respect and love of all 
who cherish virtue—it will do more—it will insure 
self-approbation, and self-respect. 
Order and Neatness; 
OR THE FORCE OF INDIVIDUAL EXAMPLE. 
[ From Fireside Education ] 
These two virtues generally go together, and you sel¬ 
dom see one without the other. In illustration of their 
benefits on the one hand, and the evils which result from 
their neglect on the other, let me introduce to the notice 
of the reader the following sketches, which he maj have 
seen before. They are pictures of village life, but les¬ 
sons may be drawn from them to suit the city, as well as 
the farm-house and cottage. 
The village of Decay is situated somewhere in New- 
England. The land is good, and the people have all the 
means of comfort and happiness, but they don’t know 
exactly how to use them. We shall give a sketch of 
Capt. Seth Wideopen’s house, which is a sample of the 
whole town. Capt. Wideopen, by the way, is a good 
sort of man enough, and is well off, as the saying goes. 
He has two hundred acres of land ; but he has not the 
good sense to observe the advice of the old rhymes— 
“ ’Tis folly in the extreme to till 
Extensive fields, and till them ill. 
The farmer, pleased, may boast aloud 
His busln-ls sown, his acres ploughed, 
And, pleased, indulge the cheering hope 
That time will bring a plenteous crop. 
Shrewd common sense sits laughing by, 
And sees his hopes abortive die, 
For, when maturing seasons smile, 
Thin sheaves shall disappoint his toil. 
Advised, this empty pride expel; 
Till little, and that little well. 
Of taxing, fencing, toil, no more 
Your ground requires when rich than poor; 
And more one fertile acre yields 
Than the huge breadth of barren fields.'’ 
The captain is also ignorant of the advantages to be 
found in following the injunctions laid down by the same 
writer, as follows 
“ Neat be your farms: ’tis long confessed 
The neatest farmers are the best. 
Each bog and marsh, industrious, drain, 
Nor let vile balks deform the plain 
No bushes on your headlands grow 
Nor briers a sloven’s culture show. 
Neat be your barns, your houses neat, 
Your doors be clean, your court-yards sweet; 
No moss the sheltering roof enshroud, 
No wooden paries the window cloud, 
No filthy kennels foully flow, 
Nor weeds with rankling poison grow; 
But shades expand, and fruit-trees bloom, 
And flowering shrubs exhale perfume. 
With pales your garden circle round; 
Defend, enrich, and clean the ground; 
Prize high this pleasing, useful rood, 
And fill with vegetable good.” 
The fact is that there is more comfort in neatness and 
order than most people think of. There is also much 
virtue in these things. They stamp themselves, after 
long habit, on the mind and heart, and, to some extent, 
mould the intellectual and moral character. JN T o being 
but a pig is happy and at ease in the midst of filth and 
confusion; and if a person, by living among them for a 
long time, gets reconciled to them, he is so far depraved 
and degraded toward the standard of one of the lowest 
of the brute creation. 
But to be a little more particular. Capt. Wideopen’s 
house stands on a broad street that runs for a mile in length 
through the village of Decay. It is an old farm-house, 
one story high, with its gable end to the street. In front 
of the house is the wood-pile, spread out so as to cover 
a rood of ground. As you pass by, the barn, cow-house 
and yard, with its deep morass of manure in high flavor, 
salute the eye and nose. The pig pen, wide open and 
in full view, is between the house and barn. In a warm 
day the congregation of vapors is overwhelming. The 
well, the wash-shed, the wood-shed, all are in full view 
to the passers by. The space around the front door is 
defiled by the pigs, who root and grunt there by day, and 
by the geese, who roost there by night. 
