102 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
middling classes, which here hold the balance of power, and who alone 
can perpetuate our republican principles. Those, therefore, who are 
destined to wield this power, with us, should be well instructed in the 
rights and duties of freemen. It is a dictate of interest, as well as of 
justice, that our young farmers and mechanics—the future umpires in 
all political controversy—the conservators of public morals—should be 
better instructed ;—that they should be instructed in so much of science 
as may be useful in their calling, and as will enable them successfully 
to compete with the products of foreign labor at our doors—and so 
much in general knowledge as will fit them for the civil duties of so¬ 
ciety—so much as, with good habits, will qualify them for the duties 
of jurors, magistrates, legislators—and good citizens. The moral wel¬ 
fare of our state, and the perpetuity of our freedom, demand a higher 
grade of instruction in our common schools, and the establishment of 
new ones, adapted to the improvement of all our great branches of 
productive labor. 
WEST NEW-YORK. 
This is one of the most beautiful and fertile agricultural districts in 
the world. The face of the country is diversified and charming—be¬ 
ing flat, or gently sloping, on the borders of the great lakes; more and 
more undulating as we recede from these; rising into hills, and assum¬ 
ing a more broken and diversified aspect as we approach the dividing 
ridge, which separates the great northern plain from the slope which 
feeds the Chemung and Allegany; and finally, sinking into the basins 
of those rivers, upon our southern border. The northern portion is 
divided into two great plateaus, or plains, terraced, and separated by 
the Mountain Ridge; which, starting from the Niagara at Lewiston, 
is cut by the canal at Lockport, and passing in an E. S. E. direction, 
forming a barrier to most of the small lakes, its identity is finally lost 
in the high grounds of Onondaga. The lower plain may be considered 
as having its eastern termination at Utica, and its southern at Ithaca, 
the first in the valley of the Mohawk, and the latter at the head of 
Cayuga lake. This section comprises in its general level the Oneida, 
Onondaga and Cayuga lakes; and such is its generallevel, that the canal, 
running east and west, is uninterrupted by locks a distance of 69 miles 
on one level, and 64 miles on another; and a sloop canal, from Sodus to 
Ithaca, in a north and southdirection, which is now about being commen¬ 
ced, will require no lockage, except near its outlet into Sodus Bay. The 
canal on the upper plain, from Lockport to Lake Erie, is also unobstruct¬ 
ed by a lock. Rail-roads are being constructed upon these great plains, 
in every direction, with comparitive trifling expense; and villages are 
springing up at the points of termination or intersection, with the fresh¬ 
ness and beauty of youth, and the enterprise and vigor of manhood. 
Dividing the country into three zones, the lower one may be denomi¬ 
nated the wheat district, the one above it the grain and cattle district, 
and the higher one the grazing district, admirably adapted to cattle 
and sheep husbandry, and the business of the dairy. And we are not 
sure, that at no distant period, the latter will not surpass the others in 
the grand requisites of a prosperous, virtuous and republican com¬ 
munity. The whole country is susceptible of a high state of improve¬ 
ment, and capable of employing and sustaining a population ten times 
greater than their present numbers. 
West New-York belongs to the secondary formation, and abounds in 
the vegetable and animal matters, which are the certain and only source 
of fertility. Its soil is also endued with a property, not common to 
other formations, which, under discreet management, will render it a 
permanent wheat growing district—it abounds in carbonate of lime— 
it is a calcareous soil, in contra-distinction to the argilo-silicious, i. e. 
sand and clay, which prevails in other sections of the state. A calca¬ 
reous soil is not only better adapted, naturally, to the purpose of hus¬ 
bandry, than an argilo-silicious one, from its better admixture of earths, 
but its fertility is longer preserved, and more easily restored. In cal¬ 
careous soils, we are advised by M. Puvis, “crops, without manure, 
grow, feebly it is true, but without appearing to exhaust the soil in a 
sensible degree; in the other, [argilo-silicious,] without manure they 
will scarcely grow at all.” Again: “Where an equal quantity of ma¬ 
nure is given to the two soils, s'o different in their natures, its effects 
on the calcareous soil is twice as great as on the argilo-silicious soil; 
whence we should naturally conclude, that the faculty of imbibing the 
principles of vegetation from the atmosphere, [and of combining with 
and dispensing them to the crop, from the manures furnished by art,] 
is much more powerful in the calcareous soils, and the vegetables it 
produces, than in the argilo-silicious soil, and it is that which consti¬ 
tutes their greatest difference.” The great agriculturist, the late John 
Taylor, of Virginia, maintained, that the atmosphere was the great 
store-house of vegetable food, abounding in the elementary matters of 
plants; and the argument of M. Puvis goes to show, that calcareous 
earth, or the matter of lime, siezes upon the elementary food in the 
atmosphere, and imparts it to plants, more readily and abundantly than 
clay or sand; and in this position he is undoubtedly correct. These 
facts go to multiply and strengthen the inducements for applying marl, 
or mild lime, to argilo-silicious soils, to increase their fertility. 
But though the soils of the west are better constituted, for the fore¬ 
going reasons, for enduring bad treatment, than those of the eastern 
and southern sections of the state; though they will wear longer, and 
can be more easily renovated, their fertility is by no means inexhaus¬ 
tible, as some seem to imagine. Even the beautiful lakes would in 
time be dried up, from evaporation, were their waters not constantly 
replenished by streamsand springs. So will the soil become exhausted 
of its fertility, if vegetable matter, the food of plants, is annually car¬ 
ried oil', and none returned; and although a new stratum of fertility 
may be brought to the surface by the trench plough, or clover made to 
alternate with wheat, these will but prolong, not perpetuate, fertility. 
The substratum will in its turn become exhausted ; and the clover, even 
should it not, as we suspect it will, soon fail in its accustomed returns, 
will but illy compensate, in the food it gives to the soil, for the exhaust¬ 
ing effects of the wheat crop. We here repeat, that within our recol¬ 
lection, the whole of the wheat and flour sent down the Hudson from 
Albany, Troy, &c. and the quantity was great, was grown in the val¬ 
ley of the Mohawk, on the eastern borders of Lake Champlain, and 
in the counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Washington,— 
and that these districts do not now grow one-fifth of the wheat required 
for the use of their population. 
It appeared to us, from superficial observation in passing through 
the country, and without making any pretensions to geological scienoe, 
that the strata of West New-York was originally deposited in nearly 
horizontal layers, by a great aqueous revolution, the different strata 
of clay, sand and lime, and the intermediate gradations or mixture, 
alternating with each othei ; that after having levelled it in surface, in 
the process of passing off, to a lower level, by the disrupture of some 
opposing barrier, the waters, by abrasion, formed in it basins or hol¬ 
lows, or, where operating with less force, left an undulating or rolling 
surface, and wore through, and carried off, more or less, according to 
the depression of the underlaying strata; and that no great internal 
convulsion of the earth had subsequently happened to disturb the hori¬ 
zontal position of the layers. We inferred, from this conviction, that 
at the same elevation, upon each of these great plains, or basins, the 
character of the soils, as regarded their earthy constituents, were nearly 
similar. We noticed, that clay loam, sand loam and sand predominated 
as we ascended from the lower levels. And here we will quote an idea 
of M. Puvis, which we think is peculiarly applicable, and may be highly 
serviceable, to the west. It is—“ that the formations in any one basin be¬ 
ing composed of the same fragments, and owing to the same revolu¬ 
tions, the soils of these basins presents, through their whole extent, a 
great analogy; and consequently, the practices of agriculture which 
have succeeded in one point, may be applied, the difference of climate 
excepted, to the analogous formations; agriculture perfected on some 
points of a basin, may give lessons almost certain for its whole extent.” 
If the truth of our conjectures should be confirmed by geological in¬ 
vestigation, and the order and depth of the different deposites deter¬ 
mined, the discovery will greatly aid the purpose of agriculture, and 
facilitate the discovery of gypsum and other fossil productions. 
The farms in West New-York are of princely dimensions, varying 
from two hundred to twelve and fourteen hundred acres. The farm 
buildings, where the country has been long settled, are large, substan¬ 
tial and often splendid; too often lacking, however, the accompani¬ 
ments of a good garden, and those rural embellishments, which are 
ever an indication of comfort, taste and refinement. But of the farm¬ 
ing, we cannot say it is good—it is generally improvident and bad; and 
there are two cogent reasons, we apprehend, which will prevent im¬ 
mediate and extensive improvement, viz. the natural fertility of the 
soil and the great extent of the farms. The cultivators seem content 
with the ample patrimony which nature has provided for them, with¬ 
out heeding the admonition, with which older settlements are replete, 
that soils, under a reckless management, will diminish in fertility. 
Their study is, rather to increase their acres, than to preserve the fer¬ 
tility of those they already possess. Nay, many effect to believe, that 
their lands will continue to produce great wheat crops, without deterio¬ 
ration, and without manure, especially if this crop is alternated with 
clover. We will state a fact that will prove the fallacy of such calcu¬ 
lations. One of the most intelligent farmers of the west, who has oc¬ 
cupied a first rate wheat farm for about twenty years, near the outlet 
of Seneca Lake, told us that he had kept an accurate account of the 
product of his wheat crop ; that dividing the time of his occupancy (he 
took it in its wild state) into three equal periods, he ascertained that 
the average product of the first period was 29 bushels of wheat per 
acre; of the second period 25 bushels, and of the third and last period 
20 bushels per acre—thus showing a diminution of products, and con¬ 
sequently of profits, in this short period, of thirty-three per cent, or 
one-third. This diminution, at the present price of wheat, would 
amount to twenty dollars the acre per annum. Thus two acres of land, 
in its virgin state, gave as great a product as three acres do now, and 
with less labor to the acre then, probably, than is required now. We 
ought to add, that our informant, contrary to common practice, has 
