third ■fn Smjratff flj t fail rati tj ]i ®inlt. series. 
Vol. I. ALBANY, JULY, 1858. No. VII. 
Diffusion of Agricultural Information. 
? HE present condition of the United States 
presents certainly a picture nowhere else 
to be found on this huge globe of a thou¬ 
sand million inhabitants. The country 
has now become one broad territory, extending 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the 
frigid to the torrid zone. On this wide, rich, and 
new region,an immense tide of immigration is pour¬ 
ing, and spreading over its surface. New national 
resources are thus created, new demands are made 
upon the necessaries and luxuries of life from the 
older cities, and the whole social and commercial 
structure is springing up and growing at such a 
rate as fairly to startle one from the ordinary track 
of thought, as every successive census exhibits the 
enormous growth, promises the round number 
of a 100,000,000 people only half a century hence. 
There are several thoughts which such a view 
irresistibly suggests to every one, who feels any 
interest in the future destiny of the country and 
its people. A prominent one, and the object of 
our present remarks, is the condition of agricul¬ 
tural and rural improvement which shall then ex¬ 
ist. It becomes an important subject of inquiry 
whether this extraordinary growth of population 
shall find comfortable and permanent subsistence, 
when every quarter section of land shall be snug¬ 
ly filled up. A prudent man, who finds his fami¬ 
ly rapidly increasing, very naturally feels an anxi¬ 
ety as to the way in which they shall all be fed : 
and those who take a little wider view, will look 
to the sources of supply which are to feed the 
great national family. According to the recent 
course of events, much of the rich patrimony 
which had fallen into the hands of this family was 
in a fair way to become squandered • the great 
national estate was cultivated in a very wasteful 
and profitless manner, diminishing the wealth of 
the soil, instead of carefully maintaining or In¬ 
creasing its value by prudent management, by 
saving manures, and economical rotations. 
There is much in the history of the past that Is 
fraught with instruction. It was-not many years 
since the great majority of all the newer lands in 
the country that had been cultivated twenty years, 
were deteriorating at a fearful rate, in conse¬ 
quence of the bad system of maiiagement. As the 
soil became ruined in the older states, the popu¬ 
lation, in accordance with the ruling passion or 
fashion of Yankee character, migrated to newer 
and richer lands, which were in their turn to be 
sacrificed in a similar manner, and abandoned. 
It has been found by census returns, that while 
the towns and cities generally in the older states 
have rapidly increased, indicating the sagaci¬ 
ty and energy of commercial men, the popula¬ 
tion of most agricultural districts has been about 
stationary, and in some instances has actually di¬ 
minished, showing no improvement whatever in 
farm management. 
A shrewd writer has made the estimate that of 
the twelve million of cultivated acres in the State 
of New-York, eight millions In the hands of 
“ skinners,” whose object was to get all they 
could from the soil, principal and interest, instead 
of trying to increase the interest by augmenting 
the principal,—three millions in the hands of farm¬ 
ers who managed them so as barely to hold their 
own, and only one million, or one-twelfth, culti¬ 
vated so as to maintain a high or increasing degree 
of fertility. We have no doubt that the latter 
number is yearly becoming greater, and that the 
skinners are rapidly diminishing. In Western 
New-York, more especially, there is a positive im¬ 
provement; the wheat crop has decidedly in¬ 
creased in its average product, to an amount, as 
some have estimated, of ten bushels more per acre, 
in some ten or fifteen years. The cause of this in¬ 
crease is a very interesting subject of inquiry. 
There is no question that it is the result of radical 
improvements in the practice of farming, and more 
particularly in a less exhausting succession of 
crops, in improved varieties of grain, in deeper 
and more thorough tillage through the assistance 
