1349. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
367 
capital grass, and when mixed with red top, and a 
s ight sprinkling of clover added, it is better for 
market than either red top or timothy alone. 
As to fall plowing for spring crops, I am of the 
decided opinion of the writer in the Louisville 
Journal , that it is a great benefit on many soils, 
especially on old swai'ds, and heavy loams or clay 
lands. Light clover swards may do as well to plow 
in the spring. Trench plowing as mentioned, is a 
very good operation, when well done, to mix and 
deepen the soil. But at the north, subsoil plowing 
is taking the lead, as by the latter operation, the 
rubsoil is not brought to the surface, but only stir¬ 
ed up and left in the bottom of the furrow. L. Du¬ 
rand.. Derby, Ct., Oct. 20, 1849. 
Importance of Reading and Study. 
Though farmers may always find more or less 
time to devote to reading and study, winter is, more 
particularly, from the leisure it affords, the season 
for this purpose. The crops having now been secured 
and the various matters requiring constant atten¬ 
tion , disposed of, the mind of the farmer is left free 
for the consideration of plans for future operation; 
and that he may act understandingly in forming 
such plans, it is essential that he should, in the out¬ 
set, possess a thorough knowledge of the principles 
and general state of agriculture. The mediums 
through which this knowledge is to be acquired, are 
reading, conversation, and observation, aided by 
reflection and study. 
We have frequently given our own views in re¬ 
gard to this subject, and though we might.add “line 
upon line,” we think we should not be able to show 
the important points in a more striking light than 
they are brought out in the following remarks of 
Hon. Samuel Cheever, in his address before the 
Agricultural Society of Saratoga County: Eds. 
Unfortunately, the opinion has too long prevailed 
with us, that learning, that intellectual cultivation 
are unnecessary for the farmer.; that to plow, to 
fence and to feed as our fathers did, is enough. If 
we see a farmer among us, and we do see many, 
who is ambitious to educate his son, to place him 
higher in community, he educates him to turn his 
back upon the farm, instead of turning his hands 
and his cultivated mind to it. But we have lived to 
see this deep-seated error, that education, that in¬ 
tellect are unnessary to the farmer, giving way to 
a more enlightened and correct public sentiment; 
and well may we be assured, that as education and 
intelligence go out upon our farms, will the farmer 
rise in his station. Intelligence—the cultivated 
mind, with pure morality, give rank, whenever and 
wherever found. 
But rank alone is not all the farmer is to gain by 
intellectual cultivation. 
The labors of state and county societies, aided 
by the exertions of many munificent and enlighten¬ 
ed men among us, and the labors of scientific men, 
as well in this country as throughout Europe, have 
demonstrated the importance and even the necessi¬ 
ty of mind , of education , of science, to the success¬ 
ful cultivation and management of our farms. 
Still, with hundreds of favorable experiments and 
results before us, in support of this position, there 
are too many of our own class, who are daily tel¬ 
ling us, that our agricultural books and our agricul¬ 
tural papers are not worth reading, and that agri¬ 
cultural science is a “ humbug .” To such I can 
only say, if you do not look about you, and do not 
read, you are in great danger of being left behind. 
True it is, books alone, without practical obser¬ 
vation, would be slow to make a good farmer. 
The professor of mathematics, directly from the 
schools, with all his books, would doubtless make a 
sorry figure in navigating the ship in a storm, and 
might receive useful lessons from the less educated 
ship-mate. But when the science of the mathema¬ 
tician is added to the practice of the sailor, the ac¬ 
complished navigator is produced. 
The practical farmer—boastingly calling himself 
so—may, if he has fallen upon a fertile spot, succeed 
for years, and get tolerable crops, by following in 
the old track, without the lights of science; and 
probably for the reason that he has accidentally hit 
upon the very course that science would indicate. 
But in a large portion of the long cultivated parts 
of our country, the fertility of the soil has been 
exhausted by those hereditary systems, if systems 
they may be called; and nothing but science and 
intelligence will produce restoration. 
If the man without reading and without books, on 
finding his crops failing under a long and exhausted 
course, can be induced at all to seek improvement 
through experiment, he is as likely t.o make the 
wrong application as the right. He has seen his 
neighbor restore a field by the application of lime, 
and concludes his fields have the same disease, and 
must be cured by the same remedy. He lays out 
his money to make the experiment, and fails. An¬ 
other .neighbor has succeeded with plaster, and his 
money is again spent upon that, without success, 
and so he goes on exhausting the catalogue of ma¬ 
nures and exhausting his purse until he gives up in 
despair, sells out to a reading farmer and goes to 
Wisconsin or Texas, where he can begin again, his 
exhausting process, upon a new and fertile spot. 
His reading successor examines his worn out soil or 
has it done for a few shillings, and finds it entirely 
exhausted and destitute of the essential element of 
potash. He applies a few bushels of ashes instead 
of lime, in which latter the soil already abounds, and 
his crops are soon doubled. 
Instances similar to this, are occurring daily 
around us. 
I place myself with the rest, whpn I say that no 
class of men in this country know so little of the bu¬ 
siness they follow as do onr farpiprs. 
The lawyer spends one-third of a life at his books, 
to fit himself to enter his profession, and then stu¬ 
dies by day and night to understand his business and 
do his duty. 
The divine is found spending all the days of an en¬ 
tire life at his books, to maintain his standing and 
discharge his duties. 
The physician also enters his profession only 
through a long course of severe study, and then all 
his life, while a “ practical physician spends 
every spare moment at his books, to see what the 
skill and experiments of others are doing. 
The commercial man and the manufacturer, spend 
their time at their business and their talents in stu¬ 
dying the course of trade and the state of the mar¬ 
kets. 
The artizan of every craft, after years of appren¬ 
ticeship, spends his days at his work and his night* 
at his books, to learn and profit himself in the mys¬ 
teries of his art, and to understand the price cur¬ 
rent of his wares. 
But the farmer is thought by some, to be born 
with all the knowledge necessary for his calling, 
and that learning and science are matters for other 
folks to trouble themselves about; when in fact how 
little do we know even of good practical farming, 
to say nothing of scientific. 
What do most of us know of the component parts 
i of the soil we cultivate, in what they ar© deficient, 
