THE CULTIVATOR. 
97 
11 While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an 
English Grammar, having at the end ot it two little sketches on 
the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a dispute in 
the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon’s Me- 
morable things of Socrates, wherein there are many examples of the 
same method. I was charmed by it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt 
contradiction and positive auginuentation, and put on the humble in¬ 
quirer. I continued this method a few years, but gradually left 
it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest 
diffidence ; never using when I advanced any thing that might pos¬ 
sibly be disputed, the words certainly — undoubtedly, or any other that 
gave the air of positiveness to an opinion ; but rather say, I con¬ 
ceive or apprehend a thing to be so or so; it appears to me, or I 
should not think it so, for such and such reasons ; or, I imagine it 
to be so ; or, it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit 1 believe has 
been of great advantage to me, when I have had occasion to incul¬ 
cate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have 
been from time to time engaged in promoting ; and as the chief 
ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or 
persuade, I wish well meaning and sensible men would not lessen 
their power of doing good by a positive assuming manner that sel¬ 
dom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat 
most of those purposes for which speech was given to us. 
“In fact if you wish to instruct others, a positive and dogmati¬ 
cal manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion opposition 
and prevent a candid attention. If you desire improvement from 
others, you should not at the same time express yourself fixed in 
your present opinions ; modest and sensible men, who do not love 
disputation, will leave you undisturbed in the possession of your 
errors. In adopting such a manner, you can seldom expect to please 
your hearers, or obtain the concurrence you desire. Pope judi¬ 
ciously observes, 
“Men must be taught as if you taught them not, 
And things unknown as things forgot.” 
He also recommends it to us, 
“ To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence,” 
and he might have joined with this line, that which he has coupled 
with another. 
“ For want of modesty is want of sense.”—P. 16, 17, 18. 
When about 28 years old, after he was married and settled in 
business, Franklin began to study the languages, and soon acquired 
a tolerable knowledge of the French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, &c. 
An acquaintance who was learning Italian with him, used often to 
tempt him to play chess. Finding this took up too much of the 
time he had to spare for study, Franklin at length refused to play 
any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game 
should have the right to impose a task, either of parts of the gram¬ 
mar to be got by heart, or in translations, which tasks the van¬ 
quished was to perform, upon honor, before the next meeting. 
“ As we played pretty equally,” says Franklin, “we thus beat one 
another into that language.” 
We learn from this portion of the early history of Benj. Frank¬ 
lin.— 
1. That useful knowledge can be acquired by one’s unassisted, 
but persevering exertions. And, 
2. That where the inclination to obtain knowledge exists, ample 
opportunities present, even to these who are in the daily habits of 
labor. 
~ THE CULTIVATOR-OCT. 1834. 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
WHEAT AND CLOVER. 
The practice has obtained, in Monroe, Orleans, and some of the 
neighboring counties, the great wheat district of our state, and is 
rapidly gaining ground, of alternating wheat and clover, that is of 
sowing wheat and clover seeds every other year upon the same 
ground. This is said to afford not only an increase of crop, but to 
effect a great saving of labor. The clover is sown with the wheat 
in autumn, or upon it in the spring. It is mown or pastured the 
second year, and the lay is then turned over and wheat and clover 
again sown upon the first furrow. Thus the grounds receive but 
one ploughing in two years, and the green manure, afforded by the 
clover, is all preserved for the wheat crop, not being dissipated by 
cross ploughings. Thus, too, the clover promotes the pulveriza- 
Vol. I. N ‘ 
tion of the soil, keeps it light and friable, and pervious to atmos¬ 
pheric influence, by its gradual decay in the soil. We are advised 
upon respectable authority, that under this practice there is seldom 
a diminution of crop, and that in some cases the product has been 
nearly doubled in a few years. 
The wheat country of the west is a deep secondary formation,_ 
the earth taken from the depth of ten and twenty feet, often exhi¬ 
biting a fertility, when exposed to atmospheric influence, equal to 
that of the surface soil. It is a deep deposite of vegetable, animal 
and earthy matter, abounding in the specific food of the wheat 
crop. Hence it often occurs, particularly in the oak openings, 
that tillage, by facilitating decomposition, increases fertility, even 
without the aid of manure. But the question worthy of considera¬ 
tion is, whether the practice of alternating wheat and clover, even 
upon these fertile formations, can be long continued, without im¬ 
poverishing the soil l A yoke of oxen may be turned to a stack of 
hay, and they may continue to thrive; but at length the stack and 
the food will become exhausted, and without a further supply, the 
oxen will ultimately become poor and die. The vegetable and ani¬ 
mal matter in our western soils is to the wheat what the stack is to 
the oxen, the food which causes growth, maturity and profit, and 
constant feeding must exhaust alike both. Although the clover lay 
affords vegetable food, it by no means makes up for the exhaustion 
of the wheat crop ; and we suspect it benefits more by rendering 
the soil porous, and thus facilitating the decomposition of the ve¬ 
getable matter which it contains, than by its own enriching quali¬ 
ties. We have little doubt but this alternation would soon°fail on 
ordinary soils ; and we believe it cannot be long persevered in at 
the west without serious detriment. The banks of the Hudson 
were once celebrated for their wheat crops ; and within our recol¬ 
lection, west Vermont sent as fine wheat to the Troy and Lansing- 
burgh markets, and it was their staple production too, as now comes 
from the west. Now, west Vermont consumes New-York flour, 
her soil no longer producing good wheat in any quantity. And 
Oneida, too, is no longer distinguished as a wheat growing coun¬ 
try; the specific food of this grain being in a measure exhausted in 
her soil. We are aware that the preceding cases do not afford 
exact parallels for the west. They are drawn principally from 
transition formations, while that of the west is secondary, and is 
more permanent in its natural fertility. To assume again our 
comparison, while nature had supplied one with hay cocks merely, 
she has bountifully furnished the other with hay slacks: and the 
result we think will be, that though the latter will hold out long¬ 
er, they are, nevertheless, imperceptibly diminishing, and must ul¬ 
timately be exhausted, as the former have been,° by injudicious 
cropping. Sterility is the worst desease that can afflict a farmer; 
and the adage teaches, that ‘ an ounce of prevention is worth a 
pound of cure.” It is far better to keep lands in good heart, by a 
judicious alternation of crops, than to restore them to fertility when 
they have become exhausted. Upon this view of the subject, our 
advice to the western farmer would be that as soon as his circum¬ 
stances are comfortable, he should cease to sow wheat upon the 
same grounds every other year, lest he should kill the goose that 
lays his golden eggs. 
EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO THE EDITORS. 
“ I think in the Cultivator you ought to dwell continually on the 
importance of science to agriculture ; I mean of all the applicable 
science the world has got: and the world is getting more every 
day, but with very little thanks to America. We want to see the 
application of geological and chemical science to the different pro¬ 
cesses in agriculture. If a knowledge and conviction of the es¬ 
sential importance of lime to the growth of wheat could be brought 
home to the farmers on the Mohawk river, it would be worth to 
them a million of dollars. In this section of the state (the west,) 
God has spread lime over our fields, and mingled it with the soil 
—hence we are raising thirty and forty bushels of wheat per acre! 
On the Mohawk river, God has given to the farmers lime in abunl 
dance, but has not spread it. A knowledge of the process of burning 
and spreading lime over their fields would enhance the value of' 
their farms fifty per cent.” 
REMARKS BY THE CONDUCTORS. 
We commend the zeal which our correspondent evinces for the 
diffusion of agricultural science, and agree with him as to its value 
in practical husbandry. We are promulgating its principles in the 
Cultivator as far as we think the public taste will warrant us. But 
