THE CULTIVATOE. 
Ill 
cent, without the aid of one dollar additional capital; that 
is, they believe that full one-third of all agricultural la¬ 
bor is literally thrown away by its misapplication. The 
uniform laws of nature will not vary nor accommodate 
the needless ignorance of man. Hence it follows that 
man must apply his labor in strict conformity to the un¬ 
erring laws that govern the changes of matter, or toil on 
through life giving two days’ work for those necessaries 
and comforts, which an understanding of the laws of na¬ 
ture would have secured to him in exchange for one day's 
work. The whole doctrine of eternal hard work and pe¬ 
nurious living as the best means of acquiring wealth or 
the comforts of life, your committee deem unsound. The 
inevitable effect of this popular system is to degrade and 
brutify, rather than to elevate our race. Mere muscular 
labor, mere mechanical power, no matter how great its 
force, without adequate knowledge to guide and direct 
it, is far more likely to act wrong than right, for the 
simple reason that there are five wrong ways to do almost 
every thing, where there is one right ieay. 
All men have intellectual organs that require develop¬ 
ment and peculiar nourishment, not less than stomachs 
which need daily food. Has not the Creator of man 
manifested his approbation of human efforts to acquire 
wisdom, even worldly wisdom, by making the ignorant 
in all ages of the world, the servants of the ivisc. 
A knowledge of the arts of plowing, sowing and reap¬ 
ing may do for the purpose of wearing out a productive 
farm, but something more is necessary to enable its own¬ 
er to give back annually to each of his cultivated fields 
the precise elements removed by the harvest, and that too 
at the least possible expense. 
Suppose a farmer now cultivates six acres of land in 
wheat, to harvest 100 bushels, how is he to manage so as 
to grow 133 bushels at the same expense? If he can raise 
33^ bushels per acre on four acres, that will give him the 
amount desired and save the whole cost of cultivating two 
acres of land. This saving may be set down at $8 per 
acre, which will give $16 surplus to be expended in 
purchasing the raw material to produce the extra 66 bush¬ 
els of wheat on the four acres to be cultivated by a new 
process. As about 94 per cent of ripe wheat plants con¬ 
sist of carbon and water, charcoal must be an important 
element in fertilizing the soil. Of the other 6 per cent 
about one-half is nitrogen, and the other moiety is made 
up of silica, potash, soda, magnesia, alumina, phospho¬ 
rus, sulphur, chlorine, and a trace of iron. Let the wheat 
grower take 100 bushels of charcoal, grind it fine in a 
bark mill or pulverize it well with flails on a threshing 
floor*, and add thereto five bushels of ground plaster. This 
would not cost in most farming districts in this State over 
$7, and if the coal and gypsum be placed in a vat or large 
tub and saturated with the urine of cattle, or partly mois¬ 
tened with the liquid excretions of the human species, 
and have five bushels of leached ashes mixed with the 
mass, it will contain all the elements of 133 bushels of 
good wheat. In case the urine can not be had, the addi¬ 
tion of four bushels of salt will give all the soda and 
chlorine that is needed, while the ashes will furnish all 
the potash, silica and- magnesia required. The piaster 
will yield the sulphur and lime, and a bushel of bone 
dust will give the phosphorus. A little copperas will 
supply the necessary iron, and the charcoal will not only 
yield carbon but it will also absorb ammonia always found 
in rain water when it comes from the clouds. 
All these constituents of wheat can be best applied to 
the soil before sowing the seed, but a top dressing of a 
compound of coal, plaster, ashes and salt, moistened with 
whatever urine can be collected, may be applied to win¬ 
ter or spring wheat in April or May, with signal benefit 
to the crop. Deep plowing and thorough draining are 
important aids in wheat culture, for reasons which your 
committee will not stop to explain. 
The liberal use of freshly burned lime is very benefi¬ 
cial by the way of correcting any acidity of soil; and al¬ 
so by absorbing carbonic acid from the air, to be given 
up to the roots of plants, and thereby promote their 
growth. A pint of human urine contains ammonia 
enough to supply a bushel of wheat with all the nitrogen 
it needs. And it is worthy of remark that wheat well 
supplied with nitrogen in ammonia, will contain from 
ten to twenty per cent more gluten than it would if it 
lacked that element, while the wheat that abounds in glu¬ 
ten will make from seven to fifteen per cent more good 
bread than the same quantity of flour composed almost 
entirely of starch. 
In Flanders, farmers pay forty shillings, or nearly ten 
dollars a year for the urine of a single cow, for that length 
of time, to be used in the culture of wheat and other 
crops. Common sense would seem to teach every agri¬ 
culturist that he should restore to his fields every particle 
of the liquid and solid excretions of all animals that feed 
upon his crops. 
A little study of the science of animal physiology 
would convince every practical farmer that not far from 
one-third of all the grass, hay, roots and grain that enters 
the mouths of his domestic animals is needlessly lost, ow¬ 
ing to some removable defect in their organic structure. 
Less than one-half of the solid matter taken into their 
stomachs is voided by tne bowels and kidneys. On an 
average, more than three-fourths of all the carbon thak, 
exists in the food of all respiratory animals escapes 
through the lungs. The action of these important or¬ 
gans, which never ceases night nor day, governs the 
elaboration of muscle, fat, milk, and wool, in such do¬ 
mestic animals as are kept for their strength, as the horse 
and ox; their milk, as the cow; their flesh and fat, as 
the pig; and their wool, as the sheep. 
Your committee do not feel at liberty, inviting as is the 
subject, to extend this report so far as to explain the 
means and process by which the organic structure of our 
six millions of sheep, two millions of neat cattle, and as 
many swine, can be greatly improved. The loss in one 
winter by the throwing away of animal heat in this State 
alone, which heat, be it known, is generated not by burn¬ 
ing cheap fire-wood or coal, but by the combustion of 
the carbon in hay, grain and roots, or of fat in the ani¬ 
mal, is not less than four millions of dollars. A man that 
eats half a pound of beef, two pounds of potatoes, and 
half a pound of bread, will expel with moderate exer¬ 
cise, carbon enough from his lungs in 24 hours to heat 
270 pounds of water from 32 deg. up to blood heat. A 
knowledge of physiology would be of great practical ser¬ 
vice to our rural population by teaching them how to 
avoid many of the exciting causes of disease and pro¬ 
tracted suffering. 
Your committee respectfully suggest that the Legisla¬ 
ture might authorize the State Agricultural Society to em¬ 
ploy a practical and scientific farmer to give public lec¬ 
tures throughout the State upon practical and scientific 
husbandry, at no higher compensation to be drawn from 
the State treasury than the pay of a member of this House, 
to the great benefit of the agricultural interest of the 
State. Having visited every rural district and learned the 
condition of the soil, and in a good degree the precise 
wants of its cultivators, such person, if otherwise compe¬ 
tent, could compile a work admirably adapted to all the 
peculiar circumstances of our farmers, which might be 
placed in all our school district libraries, at the expense 
of the funds of such libraries. A work on practical and 
scientific husbandry, embracing all the discoveries and 
improvements recently made in this most important 
branch of productive industry, and carried home to the 
fireside of every practical farmer, could not fail of being 
eminently serviceable to the community at large. 
In the opinion of your committee, practical science to 
be truly useful, should be carried home to the under¬ 
standing of every mind which controls a pair of laboring 
hands, that those hands may work at all times to the best 
advantage. The knowledge of the few, no matter how 
profound, can never compensate for the ignorance of the 
many. 
There are moral considerations, which might be urged 
with great propriety in favor of agricultural and mecha¬ 
nical schools, and public lectures upon the natural sci¬ 
ences, inseparably blended with the every day operations 
of life; but your committee may well leave them to the 
good sense of the House. 
A Motto. —The Massachusetts Plowman sfprs —“ Far¬ 
mers cannot afford to keep poor cows, or to keep cows 
poor.” 
