100 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
“ 4th. After it has been employed for gas it may be used 
for fuel, and it is equal to any charcoal.” 
As an article of fuel, the Professor thinks peat may 
be rendered of more -value than coal ; and he states that 
it has been advantageously employed in steam-boats, in 
propelling the engines. 
Black lead, is found in several localities in Warren 
and Essex. Several tons have been extracted and mar¬ 
keted. 
Application of marls and clays to agricultural purpos¬ 
es.—-The Professor’s remarks upon this subject are so 
sound and beneficial, that we copy them entire. 
‘ ‘ Preparation of the marly and tertiary clays .—In agricul¬ 
ture, as in all kinds of business, many things fall into discre¬ 
dit in consequence of misunderstanding the principle on 
which their use depends. For instance, the use of plaster 
on most soils is decidedly beneficial, but there is such a 
thing as an excessive use of it, and of persevering in its use 
too long, when its specific effects are imperceptible, and it 
becomes of no value whatever. 
“ The due preparation of soil is always an essential matter 
for the production of a good crop, or to produce a favorable 
result either in an experimental trial of any new variety of 
grain, or new mode of culture of those ordinarily raised. It 
is a matter of common observation, that one farmer succeeds 
well in his crops, while another does not, though his natural 
circumstances are equally favorable. Remarks of a similar 
nature may be made in relation to manures. One succeeds 
admirably in the use of marl, while another after a little trial, 
wholly discards it as useless, if not hurtful. This difference 
of opinion and practice, which is often the result of experi¬ 
ment, is owing to several obvious causes, such as the differ¬ 
ent modes adopted for securing the end proposed, and which 
arises from an imperfect or vague notion of the principles by 
which the desired result is to be produced. 
“ In the use of the clays, as the common, marly and terti¬ 
ary, I have found a variety of opinions, each of which, it is 
pretended, are based on experience. One considers them 
hurtful, another as useless, while a third finds them, on trial, 
very useful. It is important to understand how such a di¬ 
versity of opinions exists, when they are founded on experi¬ 
ence. 
' ‘ I conceive that there are two reasons for this. In the first 
place, the original character of the soil is such that the use 
of the clays, under no circumstances, would be proper, or 
followed with beneficial results. Clay already forms an 
abundant element in the soil, both for the aliment of the 
plant, and for the firmness of the soil. In the second place, 
it is not used in the right state or with due preparation. 
This leads me to the direct question, What is the right mode 
of using the clays, or what preparation do they require? 
“ 1st. The great point to be attended to, is to secure a suf¬ 
ficient degree of fineness, that they may be incorporated with 
the soil, and form, strictly speaking, a constituent part of it. 
To attain this object, it is necessary that they should be 
raised in the autumn and placed in heaps, that they be ex¬ 
posed to frost and the atmosphere through the winter. To 
assist still further in the process of pulverization, it is better 
to mix them with barn-yard materials, straw, manure, and 
refuse of any kind, either animal or vegetable. This course 
being pursued with them, they should be spread as evenly 
as possible on green sward, that they may enjoy the further 
benefits of the air, moisture, &c. by direct exposure during 
the season. Besides, the grass in passing up through the 
layer will assist greatly in producing a comminuted state. 
The succeeding season it is in a state to be ploughed in, 
when it is duly prepared to become a constituent part of the 
soil; it is only in this way that the stiff and adhesive clays 
can be broken up and prepared for an incorporation with the 
other earths. 
“ Suppose a different course was pursued. Instead of 
raising the clay in the fall, it was raised and spread imme¬ 
diately in the spring, and ploughed into the soil; the result 
would be, that it would remain in masses in the earth, and 
unmixed, in which state it will continue for years with but 
little change, and instead of being a benefit, it would rather 
form an annoyance, and incommode both the farmer and his 
crops. From these remarks, it is clear how two farmers might 
disagree in their experience with the clays. One, by a suit¬ 
able preparation of the material, finds a great advantage in 
their employment; another, by throwing them on or into his 
soil in lumps, perceives no effect on his crops, or is incom¬ 
moded by the hard baked masses of clay which a hoe can 
scarcely divide asunder. It is true, that in time, those 
masses would disappear, and finally they would become in¬ 
corporated with the soil, but several seasons would elapse 
before this would take place, and the result of the trial would 
be such as to discourage the further employment of the ar¬ 
ticle; besides, I believe that clay or any other material is 
more readily broken down and pulverized when first taken 
from the bed than afterwards, when it has been exposed to 
the hardening influence of the sun during the warm season. 
“ The necessity of an intimate mixture of any substances 
intended to act as a manure, cannot be too much inculcated 
by the agriculturist. 
“ Most of the clays of this state are those which are marly, 
or which are combinations of clay and carbonate of lime. 
They are widely diffused, but their value is not highly ap¬ 
preciated. The time is not distant, however, when they 
will be esteemed as highly as plaster. They have even one 
advantage over plaster, that their effects are more lasting 
when they have had a due preparation. 
“ The practice of employing vegetable or animal substan¬ 
ces in conjunction with marl, or the varieties of calcareous 
manure, has not prevailed to a suitable extent. It must be 
plain that carbonate of lime, or sulphate of lime, cannot sup¬ 
port vegetation without other materials. It appears, how¬ 
ever, that a large proportion of the food of plants exists in 
the earth in an insoluble state; and that it is by a chemical 
union of the calcareous matter and this insoluble vegetable 
substance that it becomes soluble, and fitted for the suste¬ 
nance of plants in general; hence arises the mutual benefit 
of combining earths with vegetable and animal substances; 
and hence, too, the bad practice of continuing the mineral 
manures until the whole of the vegetable and animal matter 
is withdrawn from the soil; for by the increased activity of 
the growing vegetable, the soil is rapidly exhausted of its 
nutritious matter, and it is left comparatively barren, if the 
agriculturist ceases to apply vegetable and animal matter. 
There remains then but one course, that of supplying direct¬ 
ly the necessary nutriment; but it is unquestionably better 
to maintain a sufficiency of vegetable matter always in the 
earth, and never suffer a soil to be exhausted or worn out by 
overtaxing its resources.” 
HAMILTON- COUNTY, 
Which, until recently, has formed the north part of 
Montgomery, although broken and mountainous, and as 
yet but a wilderness, is represented as affording a strong 
and productive soil, and an excellent country for grazing, 
raising stock, and for producing butter and cheese. The 
district comprised in the county of Hamilton is very si¬ 
milar to the Green Mountain range in Connecticut, Mas¬ 
sachusetts and Vermont; alike adapted to the raising 
of fine cattle, and hale, stout, intelligent, independent 
men, whenever that bane to agricultural and mental im¬ 
provement—the lumber business, —shall cease to be the 
principal occupation of its inhabitants. The county 
abounds in lakes and picturesque scenery. Cattle and 
dairy husbandry have now obtained a firm footing on 
the northern borders of the Mohawk valley. Farms 
there are in consequence doubling in value, and the 
farmers are becoming wealthy; and the proximity of 
Hamilton county to this district will not permit us to 
doubt but the example will spread northwardly; and 
that this new county will ere long attract the notice and 
the enterprise of the emigrant. The facilities of trans¬ 
porting to market the products of the soil, of the dairy, 
and domestic animals, hold out advantages to the culti¬ 
vator which are not to be found in more remote districts. 
It is an unquestionable fact, that all kinds of animals, 
including the human species, possess more health, and 
display finer powers, on the hills and mountains, and 
in the intervening valleys, than they do on the plains 
and in the champaign country. Nor is this all—here 
abide, in their greatest purity, the social and household 
virtues; and, above all, here liberty loves best to dwell; 
and it is from the hilly and mountainous districts that 
she wings her last flight from any and from every land. 
Driven long since from the plains of Italy, the goddess 
loves yet to linger in the recesses of the Alps and Ap- 
penines, and to hold communion with the descendants 
of William Tell, and of other patriots of ancient days. 
Internal navigation. —By means of the numerous 
lakes which dot the county, which are nearly upon a 
level with each other, and most of which are already 
connected by streams, in part boatable, a channel of 
internal communication may be opened, at comparative¬ 
ly trifling expense, between the head waters of the Hud¬ 
son, and the streams which flow into Lake Champlain 
and the St. Lawrence river. And when we consider that 
the region, abounds in ores, limestone, marble, and the 
finest timber in the state, it does not require a great 
stretch of credulity to believe, that the present genera¬ 
tion will not pass away ere the county of Hamilton will 
be in a great part settled, cultivated, and made to de¬ 
velop its resources of wealth and happiness. Lying off 
from the great thoroughfare of travel, it very seldom 
attracts the notice of the traveller and the emigrant; 
and Prof. Emmons has rendered a public service by 
bringing it out from the shade, in developing its resourc¬ 
es, and pointing out the facilities of a water communi¬ 
cation, the expense of which will not be much greater, 
in the end, than a turnpike, to expedite to market the 
iron, the lumber, the marble, &c. of this extensive dis¬ 
trict. 
CLINTON COUNTY. 
This is another county of our state posssessing much 
good soil, and a climate as mild as its parallel in New- 
England, which lying off from the great thoroughfares, 
has not met with the notice from emigrants to which its 
position and fertility entitle it. It is not only a gl azing, 
but a grain district. The extensive iron and other man¬ 
ufactories within its limits, and upon its borders, will 
for a long time afford a ready and profitable market for 
its surplus agricultural products; and when these fail, 
the lake upon its border affords the ready means of 
transporting it to Montreal or to Albany, as prices may 
invite. The agricultural capabilities of this county 
have in a great measure remained dormant, by reason 
of the lumber trade, an impediment to improvement 
which is fast disappearing. Under a better,—under 
the new system of husbandry, the lake towns may be 
rendered highly productive in grain, roots and grass,— 
and those lying in the interior, in cattle and their pro¬ 
ducts. But let us hear the Professor. He says, 
“ Whoever has travelled during the summer from Port- 
Kent to the Canada line, along the main road, cannot have 
failed to remark the excellence of the soil and the favorable 
make of the country for agricultural purposes. Probably 
there is no better soil in the state than that of Peru, Chazy 
and Champlain. It is composed of a due intermixture of the ter¬ 
tiary clays and sands, which nature has sometimes intermin¬ 
gled in the proper proportion to constitute'-the best for agricul¬ 
ture; in other cases, they are placed in juxta position, pre¬ 
pared to the hand of the husbandman to make that mixture 
which, in his judgment, shall best promote his interests. 
Of the richness of the soil, and the favorable nature of the 
climate, we have an unfailing test, also, in the thrifty growth 
and healthy state of the apple, and other fruit trees. In a 
cold soil and a windy district, they are uniformly stinted and 
covered with parisites, which gives them really a gloomy as¬ 
pect; but in a good soil and temperate climate, they always 
look flourishing and green, and free from that sombre ap¬ 
pearance they wear when their limbs and twigs are covered 
by a parasitic growth of lichens.” 
Sand stone, for glass, iron ores and black marble, are 
found in this county. The ores are principally in the 
southwest section of the county. The iron made from 
them is of a superior quality. 
WARREN COUNTY, 
Is strictly a mountainous district; but is sufficiently 
productive, the report assures us, to answer all the ends 
of the husbandman. Its mineral productions have al¬ 
ready been partially alluded to; and we do not find in 
the report of this county any suggestions particularly 
beneficial to agriculture. 
Mr. Colman’s Second Report. 
MANURES. 
Under this head the commissioner has given us a 
short chapter—too short—and has omitted what was 
most wanted, his own matured opinions. It is a subject 
of the first importance to agricultural profit. The re¬ 
sults which he has cited, of various applications, as gyp¬ 
sum, ashes, marl, &c. serve rather to bewilder than to 
guide the novice. 
The preliminary inquiries in regard to gypsum are, 
to what soils, and to what crops it is beneficially appli¬ 
ed? It certainly operates beneficially upon some soils, 
and jipon some crops; and it is certainly of little or no 
benefit upon other soils and other crops. For ourselves 
we are disposed to hold to the theory of Sir Humphrey 
Davy, till we have a better one to follow; first, because 
it seems to us the most rational; and secondly, because 
we think we have found it verified in practice. Davy’s 
opinion was, that gypsum is a necessary element in cer¬ 
tain plants; (as a few drops of pepper-mint were wont 
to be in olden times in a mint sling;) that without it, the 
plant cannot, any more than the sling without the mint, 
attain its distinctive character, or rather develop its 
natural volume; that many soils naturally contained 
enough gypsum to supply the demands of the crop; 
that other soils were replenished with it in the yard 
manures which were carried on to them—(the manure 
containing gypsum)—and that where it did not so exist 
in the soil, its application would be of certain efficacy to 
all crops which are found to contain it on analysis. 
Davy found gypsum in the ashes of clover and lucern, 
in the ratio of four bushels of this mineral in the crop 
of an acre. It is a rational philosophical conclusion, 
that this gypsum must have been derived from the soil; 
it could not have been imbibed from rains nor from the 
atmosphere, under any known natural laws;—and the 
conclusion from these premises is, that unless it had 
previously existed in the soil, or been artificially sup¬ 
plied, the clover and lucern would have been either di¬ 
minutive in growth, or deficient in their natural quali¬ 
ties. We do not know what farm crops give gyp¬ 
sum on analysis; but from an experience of twenty 
years, we have come to the conclusion, that it is benefi¬ 
cial on all dry soils, sands, gravels and clays, generally, 
with the exceptions indicated below, to broad-leaved 
crops, as clover, lucern, corn, potatoes, peas, beans, 
buck wheat, &c. and that is of little or no direct service 
to narrow-leaved plants, as wheat, rye, barley, timothy, 
&c. It is not beneficial in wet grounds, nor within the 
influence of the marine atmosphere. Its beneficial ef¬ 
fects have been greater upon poor soils, especially sandy 
ones, than upon rich soils, provided the poor soils con¬ 
tained enough organic matters, in a soluble state, to 
feed the crop. Under this view of the matter, and from 
the fact that gypsum is not soluble is less than 500 parts 
of water,—we have adopted the practice, recommended, 
we think, by Taylor and Peters, of sowing it broadcast 
upon fields designed for our corn and potatoe crops, be¬ 
fore the last ploughing or harrowing, that it might be 
rendered soluble in due time, by the moisture of the 
soil; and have scattered it in March or April upon our 
grass grounds, that it might be carried info the soil by 
the vernal rains, and be more readily taken up by the 
roots of the grasses. It is an undisputed fact, that 
when gypsum is applied late to the surface, and dry 
weather ensues, it is often inoperative, at least foi 
the season. 
One case is cited by the commissioner, of a pota¬ 
to crop, plastered by putting a table spoonful on the 
seed in the hill, giving twice the yield of an adjoining 
piece which had received no plaster, but in other re¬ 
spects similar treatment with the plastered piece.— 
This strengthens our theory, and is in conformity with 
our practice, only that we wet our seed potatoes in the 
cart, and strew the gypsum upon them there. 
The prejudicial effects of ashes are mentioned, when 
applied to wet soils, as are their beneficial effect upon 
dry soils. Without being leached, Chaptal remarks, 
wood ashes are loo active; but after having been de¬ 
prived by the action of water of nearly all their salts, 
they will produce great effect, particularly upon moist 
lands and meadows, in which they not only facilitate 
the growth of useful plants, but if employed for several 
years they will free the land from weeds and rushes. 
Wood ashes, he continues, possess the double property 
of amending a wet and clayey soil, by dividing and dry¬ 
ing it, and of promoting vegetation by the salts they 
contain. Here too we want more light to guide our 
practice. Ashes do not properly constitute any portion 
of the positive food of plants. Their efficacy consists 
in the mechanical amelioration which they afford to the 
soil, and their chemical effects upon the organic matters, 
or the materials of vegetable food, which are there de¬ 
posited. We give to animals condiments and stimulants, 
to aid the processes of digestion, or at all events some 
of the human family are in the habit of taking them 
to excess. These, when duly administered, as the daily 
use of salt to our farm stock, tend to aid and assist the 
digestive processes—and to convert the food into heal¬ 
thy chyle, blood and flesh. The soil is the stomach of 
vegetables; and alteratives and stimuli applied there, 
are often as beneficial in promoting vegetable nutrition 
