136 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
vegetable kingdom are yet but imperfectly understood by the learn* 
ed, and are much less known to the unlearned. But chemistry is 
successfully at work in disclosing useful facts in vegetable economy, 
before unknown. Among these, it has been declared, and satisfac¬ 
torily demonstrated, that plants possess excretory organs, by which 
they throw oft' such matters as do not afford them nutrition, or which 
are not essential to their wants. It seems to be admitted, that plants 
take up, indiscriminately, the vegetable food which presents, in a pre¬ 
pared form, to their spongeoles, or mouths; that they have no power 
of selecting their tood in this stage of nutrition ; but that when the sap 
has been elaborated in the leaves, they have the power of retaining 
only such portions as food as are congenial to their wants, and ne¬ 
cessary to their perfect development, and of throwing off the residue 
into the soil. As plants differ essentially in their properties and pro¬ 
ducts, it would seem to follow, that different proportions of the ele¬ 
mentary matters which constitute the food, and make up the sub¬ 
stance of vegetables, and in various combinations, must be required 
by different species, or in other words, that they do not all subsist 
upon and exhaust the like food. This is proved by the experience 
of every farmer, who finds it profitable to alternate or change his 
crops, and prejudicial to crop a field two or more years in succession 
with the same grain. 
The conclusions which some philosophers have drawn from these 
facts, viz. that the excrementitious matter thrown off by plants is a 
sort of poison to the like species—and that hence the necessity of al¬ 
ternating crops—is at least of very doubtful authority; and to our 
minds seems to be contradicted by theory as well as practice. And 
if the inferences are to be admitted as a general rule, this general 
rule certainly admits of numerous and broad exceptions. 
Soils are impoverished, not by what is grown upon them , but by 
what is carried off from them. If the crop is all retained upon, and 
returned to the soil, fertility will rather be increased than diminished; 
and the same crop may be made to follow without deterioration. 
The reason is simply this, that the very matters which constituted 
the dead crop, remain to be transmuted mto the living one. But 
when the product is carried off from the ground, the soil is robbed of 
part of its specific food for the like crop. We have several familiar 
illustrations in proof of our position, some of which we beg leave to 
mention. 
We have seen poor waste lands enclosed, from which cattle were 
excluded, and upon which the stinted herbage had been suffered to 
remain and rot—and although the same plants grew upon them an¬ 
nually, the herbage and the soil annually improved. 
We have seen about buildings, waste patches, where nettles, bur¬ 
docks and other foul weeds were permitted to luxuriate unmolested, 
and to fall and decay upon the ground; and every succeeding growth 
seemed to increase in vigor. 
We have seen lands that were never cultivated, particularly wet 
grounds, covered with the same annual plants for successive years, 
without perceiving any sensible diminution of growth. 
The vast prairies of the west, and indeed all our wild lands, have 
produced annually the same herbage, probably for centuries; and 
yet we do not learn that this herbage is less luxuriant now than it 
was half a century ago. _ 
These facts, and many more that might be cited, go to disprove 
the hypothesis of De Candolle, Macaire, Rennie and others, that the 
excrementitious matter of plants is poison to their own species. The 
undiminished, or rather increased fertility, in the cases we have re¬ 
ferred to, arises from the circumstance, that nothing is carried off 
from the ground: that what grows upon the soil is returned to it 
again, and becomes proper food for its own species. 
The preceding cases have reference only to uncropped grounds. 
Let us now test the hypothesis by known results in farm culture. 
There are many perennial cultivated plants, the circle of whose 
roots does not materially enlarge, which are cropped, and thrive in 
the same locations for years, the vigor of whose grow th may be in¬ 
creased by the liberal application of manure. We give asparagus 
as a familiar illustration. The roots of the plant are interwoven, 
and virtually fill the bed the first year of their growth; and yet the 
plants continue to increase in vigor for some years, under good cul¬ 
ture. This they could not do upon the assumed doctrine we arc 
combatting. 
Wheat, of all the cultivated crops, should afford proof of the poi¬ 
sonous nature of its excretory matter, if such matter is truly delete¬ 
rious. Upon ordinary soils, this grain will not bear repetition in suc¬ 
cessive years, without great diminution in product; nor would it up¬ 
on any soils if Macaire and Rennie were right in their conclusions. 
Yet upon some soils, highly charged with its specific food, it does 
hear repetition for many years. In reference to this question, we 
made particular inquiry last summer, in a circle of intelligent gentle¬ 
men at Auburn, “ how many years in succession any of their grounds 
had teen known to carry wheat V 1 An instance was given, in re¬ 
ply, where wheat had been grown on a field twenty-one out of twen¬ 
ty-two years; and a second was immediately noted, where it had 
been grown twenty-two years in succession. Turning to our inform¬ 
ant, we asked, “what was the product of the last crop!” “Forty 
bushels per acre,” he replied. “Was the ground manured!” “No.” 
These cases, we believe, are not singular, though they may indicate 
bad husbandry. In several districts in the west, and in some in the 
Canadas, wheat has been grown many years in succession, and con¬ 
stitutes almost the exclusive crop; and on what are termed the oak 
openings, we are told, there has often been an increase of crop, for 
successive years, and this without the aid of manure. 
Let it not be supposed, from our remarks, that we are opposed to 
an alternation of crops ; on the contrary, we consider it the basis of 
good husbandry. The theorist, as well as the practical farmer, ad¬ 
mits its great utility. But the necessity of this alternation, we con¬ 
tend, does not arise from a poison deposited in the soil by a previous 
crop, but from the exhaustion of food by that crop—the specific food 
of the species. Whichever party may be right as to the cause of 
infertility, both are agreed as to the preventive means, which is the 
main point. Because some lands can bear successive crops of the 
same grain, it is no proof that it is wise to require them to do it—or 
that other lands can be made to do the like. The reasons in favor 
of the alternation of crops are not weakened by the arguments upon 
either side, but rather acquire new force from both. 
Morus Multicaulis .—It appears from the deliberations of the 
French Royal Society of Agriculture, which we find noted in the 
Farmers’ Register, that the Chinese mulberry is not a distinct spe¬ 
cies ; that its seed will not produce its like, and as a valuable varie¬ 
ty, cannot be preserved except by multiplying it by cuttings, grafts 
or layers; and that it is exclusively by these means the Chinese 
cultivators have reared this tree from time immemorial. Seeds 
sown near Venice have produced varieties, but none like the true 
morus multicaulis. 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
The rapid increase of woollen manufactories among us for the last 
fifteen years, and the corresponding increase of our flocks, render it 
obvious, that sheep husbandry has already became an important 
branch of our farming, and a source of individual and public wealth. 
And when we consider, that neither our woollens nor our wool are 
equal to the home consumption—that both are already becoming 
articles of export—and that wool is now profitably grown upon our 
most valuable farms,—we have good reasons to believe, that the time 
is not distant, when wool will become one of the prime staples of the 
north, as cotton has, within a few years, of the south. Impressed 
with this belief, the conductors feel desirous of rendering the Culti¬ 
vator a useful vehicle of information upon this important branch of 
our industry ; and while they earnestly solicit communications upon 
this subject from practical husbandmen, they promise to contribute 
such information as their observation or reading may suggest as va¬ 
luable. With this view, they have collected some facts, from high 
authorities, for this number, which will be found under the head of 
Sheep Husbandry. 
There is little doubt but that the mountainous and hilly districts of 
our state, at present of comparative little value, will ultimately be¬ 
come our most profitable sheep grounds. They will afford a more 
healthy range for these animals than flat rich lands, and sheep will 
be maintained with far less expense upon them than upon the latter. 
Sheep delight in pure free air and dry pasture, and are constitution¬ 
ally fitted for rocky and stony situations; and indeed it is contend¬ 
ed by some, and with much reason, in our opinion, that stony grounds 
are important to their health;—that on stony dry soils, they are not 
subject to the foot-rot and other distempers which are known often 
sorely to afflict them when kept on moist soft pastures. Many of the 
farmers in England pave the yards in which sheep are folded. If these 
animals can be profitably maintained upon farms worth from fifty to 
one hundred dollars per acre, they can be maintained with greater 
profit upon hilly lands costing from two to twenty dollars per acre ; 
for certainly the difference in the herbage of the two descriptions of 
