THE CULTIVATOR. 
103 
been in the habit of saving and applying his manure, and of alternat¬ 
ing clover. With regard to the quality of farming, it is impossible to 
manage a very large farm well, though it may be managed with great 
present profit, with the limited capital and labor, which it is there cus¬ 
tomary to expend upon them. The tendency must constantly be to de¬ 
terioration, and to a consequent diminution of acreable profits. The 
valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk have been once as celebrated for 
their fertility as the west now is; but a reckless system of cropping 
exhausted it. But brighter times are dawning upon upon us; a better 
system of farming is restoring to the soil its wonted fertility; science 
is contributing her aid; and these valleys, at no distant day, will make 
as large returns to agricultural labor as any portion of our country. 
Let the west be admonished by these lessons, and learn to be provi¬ 
dent of the munificent bounties of Providence. 
Although, from the preceding considerations, we do not look for great 
and immediate amelioration in the condition of western farming, yet 
there are improvements of such manifest advantage, and involving such 
trivial expense, that we may hope to see them gradually introduced. 
We will now speak particularly of two of the more prominent— ma¬ 
nuring and draining, which lay at the foundation of good husbandry. 
We may as well expect our farm stock to become fat without the 
provident care of man, as to expect that our soil will continue to afford 
its accustomed yield, without returning to it something of the vegeta¬ 
ble matter which we are annually taking from it. To make fat ani¬ 
mals, we cultivate for, and feed them with, the grain, the pulse, the 
roots and the grass of the farm. If we would make good crops, we 
must in like manner provide them with an abundance of nutritious food, 
—which is furnished to our hands in the dung, straw, and animal and 
vegetable refuse of the farm, which constitute the true aliment of plants. 
And yet, notwithstanding the self-evident truth of these propositions, 
we were astonished to see, in the whole route from Utica to Buffalo, 
a reckless disregard of this primary maxim of good husbandry. We 
saw vast accumulations of manure in the cattle yards, and immense 
quantities of straw about the out-buildings and in the fields, seemingly 
regarded as incumbrances rather than as precious sources of fertility 
and of profit, and we often saw neighboring cornfields littei ally starv¬ 
ing for want of this vegetable aliment. On asking an inhabitant why 
piles of manure, which we pointed out, were suffered to accumulate, 
year after year, till they rotted the cills and sides of the barn, and 
why they were not carried to the field, he replied, with great sang froid, 
that the soil was already rich enough. We means to except from these 
general remarks, many notable instances of judicious and enlightened 
husbandry. 
No country is better adapted to improvement by underdraining, than 
many districts of West New-York. There are immense plains, gently 
sloping, either possessing a clay soil, or resting upon a subsoil imper¬ 
vious to water, on which crops are liable to suffer greatly from the ex¬ 
tremes of wetness and drought. The skill and labor of the farmer 
should be employed to guard against these extremes; an ignoramus 
may raise good crops when he has a good soil, and a good season. The 
inclination of the surface is not sufficient to enable the excess of water 
to pass off readily after heavy rains, and the soil or subsoil will not 
permit it to pass into a lower and more porous stratum; the conse¬ 
quence is, that it reposes in excess, in the wet seasons, near the sur¬ 
face, and becomes highly deleterions to the growing crops. The ground, 
from being thus saturated and distended with water, on the occurrence 
of drought, exhibits the other extreme,—it contracts, and hardens like 
a brick bat, exhibiting fissures or cracks in every direction. Did the 
water merely filter through the soil, and pass off, as it would do in un¬ 
derdrains, and does on steep declivities, the surface would remain com¬ 
paratively porous, neither distending nor contracting much, and pervi¬ 
ous to the kind influences of the sun and atmosphere. Clay never be¬ 
comes so compact and hard as when, highly saturated with water, it is 
poached with the tread of animals, and afterwards dried by the sun. 
And this evil is likely to increase as the soil, divested of its vegetable 
matter, an inevitable consequence of hard, and even of ordinary crop¬ 
ping, becomes consequently more compact and impervious. If water 
reposes within the reach of the roots of plants, it necessarily excludes 
air from them, which is an indispensable requisite to the decomposition 
of vegetable food, and to the healthy development of cultivated crops. 
The cultivation of the land in narrow or moderate ridges, in the di¬ 
rection of the main slopes, would, in some measure, remedy the evil; 
sowing on the first furrow, the fallow being a grass ley, and the fur¬ 
row-slices being made to lap on each other, so that each should become 
an underdrain, would effect a further improvement; but the only 
thorough care must be sought for in a system of thorough Scotch un¬ 
derdraining, which will pass off any excess of water, which may pene¬ 
trate the surface, or rise from springs. 
But with all the fertility, all the beauty, and all the enterprise and 
thrift, which latter are great, there is lacking in a great portion of the 
west, one of the essential comforts of life—a supply of pure water — 
and there is likely soon to be— a want of timber for fencing and fuel— 
another of what we class among at least the conveniences of life. Wa¬ 
ter, for farm and family purposes, is scarce in the northern section, 
and the quality indifferent or bad. There is little or no waste land; 
and the fear is, that the hope of present gain will induce a wanton de¬ 
struction of timber, so as to leave the next generation comparatively 
destitute. Providence seems wisely to have furnished to every country 
some of the good things of life, but to no country all of them, lest man 
should forget his dependance and his duties. The want of water may 
in a great measure be remedied by artificial ponds, filtering cisterns, 
and probably by artesian wells. The inclined plane and tenacious soil 
are well adapted for the first, as the surface water may be readily con¬ 
centrated at a desired point, and clay soils require no puddling, though 
bottoms of ponds should be bedded with stones or gravel. If con¬ 
structed at the intersection of division fences, the same pond may serve 
for three or four enclosures. If a system ot underdraining is adopted, 
the water drained off may be conducted to these ponds, or into tanks 
or troughs, accessible to cattle. For culinary and other family uses, 
rain water, when filtered, possesses the highest value. Every house 
might, at no great expense, have a durable filtering cistern constructed, 
made of cement and stone or brick, and upon Foster and Van Kleeck’s 
patent circular plan, which would receive the water from the roofs of 
buildings, and purify it for use. And lastly, artesian wells, in which 
the water rises to the surface, or nearly to it, we believe, from the ge¬ 
neral configuration of the country, might be resorted to with strong 
probability of success. We saw, near Geneva, a well of this charac¬ 
ter, from which constantly flowed a large stream of water. It is our 
intention, as soon as we can collect the requisite data, to describe the 
mode of boring artesian wells. We give, in another column, directions 
for making artificial ponds and filtering cisterns. 
New discoveries of gypsum have recently been made in Arcadia, 
Wayne, contiguous to the canal, and in Wheatland, Monroe, in the line 
of a rail-road now making. The gypsum, in both cases, is found near 
the surface, in quantities, and of the ordinary quality of western plas¬ 
ter. Its contiguity to the canal and a rail-road, will greatly facilitate 
its transportation, and enhances the value of the discovery. In Arca¬ 
dia we saw two large structures on the margin of the canal, for grind¬ 
ing the stone. 
BEET SUGAK. 
M. Pedder’s Report. —We have before mentioned, that some gen¬ 
tlemen had associated at Philadelphia, and, we might have added, under 
the style of the “Beet Sugar Society,” for the purpose of introducing 
into the United States the culture of the sugar beet; that they had em¬ 
ployed Mr. James Pedder to proceed to France to procure the required 
information, in regard to the culture of the root, the process of manu¬ 
facture, &c. &c. Contributions were solicited to defray the expense of 
the embassy, and one gentleman of our city, noted for liberality, we 
understand, gave $200, under the impression that the object was public 
good, and that the information to be obtained was to be freely impart¬ 
ed, for public benefit. Mr. James Pedder has been to France, has sent 
home seed, and has returned, and the result of his inquiries has been 
published by the “ Beet Sugar Society of Philadelphia,” in a pamphlet 
of 40 pages, 8vo. copyright secured, and is offered for.sale at the mo¬ 
dest price of 50 cents the copy! The pamphlet does not contain more 
matter than is contained in one number of our Cultivator, which sells 
at four cents. We have no sort of objection, that the Beet Sugar So¬ 
ciety of Philadelphia should speculate in subscriptions, in beet seed, 
and in the sale of their report—we only want the public to know the 
matters of fact. 
The copy right of the report being thus secured, we are debarred 
from making extracts, and must content ourselves with a brief summa¬ 
ry, and refer the reader to the report for particulars, which, to those 
who mean to go into the culture and manufacture, is worth fifty cents. 
In this summary we avail ourselves, too, of the gratuitous informa¬ 
tion furnished by M. Iznard, French Vice-Consul at Boston, to the 
trustees of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. 
The soil most suitable for the beet culture is, according to M. Iznard, 
one that is deep, light, rather sandy, but rich. Mr. Pedder says a 
healthy subsoil is indispensable; and that with this prerequisite it may 
be cultivated on almost any soil. No manure; as beets raised on ma¬ 
nured grounds, says M. Iznard, have proved to contain salts detriment¬ 
al to sugar. 
The species of beet. —Iznard says the white German (not the mangold 
wurzel) is the best; Pedder says the white Silesian and the rose co¬ 
loured are the only kinds sown in a large way. Chaptal prefers these. 
Preparation of the grounds, sowing, fyc. —The ground ought to be 
trench-ploughed, and well pulverized. The seed is sown in France the 
last of April and the first of May—from the first to fifteenth May in 
latitude 42 deg.—in drills from 20 to 24 inches asunder. Mr. Pedder 
says sow eight pounds seed to the acre. 
Cultivation .-^-Good cultivation, says M. Iznard, is all important, in 
order to enhance and perfect the saccharine principle, and to facilitate 
