THE CULTIVATOR. 
155 
Besides the characteristic of providing plants with food, the various 
kinds of dung possess other qualities, which add to their fertilizing powers. 
Dung, as it is applied to the ground, is never so much decomposed as to 
have ceased fermenting; and from the moment it is mixed with the soil it 
produces in it a degree of warmth favorable to vegetation, and serving to 
guard the young plants against the effects of those sudden returns of cold 
in the atmospheric temperature, which are so often experienced. On 
account of the viscous fluids which it contains, dung is not easily dried 
unless it be in contact with the air. It therefore preserves the roots of 
the plants in a state of moisture: and supports vegetation at those periods 
when without it, plants would perish from drought. It likewise contains 
many salts which are transmitted by water to plants, serving to animate 
and excite their functions. The various kinds of dung, mixed with earth, 
may be considered in the light of amendments to.the soil; and- in this 
view they ought to vary according to the nature of the earth to be im¬ 
proved. Compact soils require to be separated and warmed; they re¬ 
quire, then, those manures which have been but slightly fermented, and 
that are the richest in salts. Calcareous and light earths require oily ma¬ 
nures, which decompose slowly, and can retain water for a long time, to 
furnish it to the wants of plants in seasons of drought. 
It is by separating these principles, that w'e may be able to appropriate 
the various kinds of manure to each species of soil and plant; the atten¬ 
tion of agriculturists is already directed, upon this point, to the composi¬ 
tion of mixtures of manures, called composts. These are formed by ar¬ 
ranging, one above another, beds of different kinds of manure, taking care 
to correct the faults of one by the properties of another, in such a manner 
as to produce a mixture suited to the soil to be enriched by it. 
For example; if it be required to form a compost for a clayey and com¬ 
pact soil; the first bed must be made of plaster, gravel', or mortar rubbish; 
the second, of the litter and excrements of horses, or sheep; the third, 
of the sw eepings of yards, paths, and barns, of lean marl, dry and calca¬ 
reous; of mud deposited by rivers, of the fecal matter collected upon the 
farm, the remains of hay, straw, etc , and this-in its turn must be cover¬ 
ed with a laying of the same materials as the first. Fermentation will 
take place first in the beds of dung, and the liquor flowing from these will 
mingle with the materials of the other layers; when the mass exhibits the 
signs which I have pointed out, as indicating decomposition to be suffi¬ 
ciently advanced, jt must be carried into the fields, care being first taken 
to mix well the substances composing the different layers. 
If the compost be designed to manure a light, porous, and calcareous 
soil, it must be formed of materials of a very different character. In .this 11 
case it is necessary that argillaceous principles should prevail; the sub- I 
stances must be compact, the dung of the least heating kind, and the fer- j 
mentation contiued, till the materials form a yielding and glutinous paste;! 
the earths must be clayey, half baked, and pounded, or consisling of fat' 
and argillaceous marl, and mud from the sea coast. Of these all the layers j 
must be formed 
By following these principles 
A man cannot go forth upon the land with any good degree of promise 
in scientific experiment, without the light of past experience upon his 
pathway, and this he can only obtain by a passage through the literary in¬ 
stitutions of the country, where the results of the labors of the learned 
forages are collected together, and made accessible to the student. To 
attempt a prosecution of the sciences independent of the past experience, 
as we sometimes incline to consider ourselves, would be vain. There is 
scarcely a valuable discovery of modern times, but has borrowed some¬ 
thing of its proportions or utility from the mind of antiquity. 
That the farmer, by a scientific cultivation of his land, can increase to 
a very great extent its productions, there does not exist a rational doubt. 
And that the time is coming when there will be actual necessity for this 
increase of production, there is every appearance. It is, therefore, not 
only wise and expedient to commence or carry on now, but it is a high 
duty which is owed to posterity, ir. consideration of all the blessings 
which past ages have bequeathed us. 
Permit us, therefore, in our humble way, to impress upon the minds of 
the farmers the very great usefulness of education. Give your sons and 
daughters not the less education, because you design them for rural life 
and agricultural pursuit. If you are able, educate them—thev will find 
abundant employmant for all their science, though their farms "be located 
in the deep wilderness of the w est; thouirh they be cast amid barren rocks 
and sterile sand plains, science will aid them there. 
Not a blade of grass nor a spear of grain but will grow better under the 
cultivation of intellectual care. Not a flower, but will show beauties to 
the eye of science, which the vulgar world knows not of. Not a vine 
but rears filler, and produces more, where educated hands superintend its 
growth. In short, all nature is beautified, improved and bettered, where 
the cultivator is no stranger to its properties and the science of its deve¬ 
lopments. 
Farmers, give your children education. It is the only earthly inheri¬ 
tance you can bequeath them,-that is beyond the reach of accident. All 
other human property is constantly changing and transitory. Science, is 
not transferable—not like the mutability of other goods, negotiable. Firm 
and unshaken by human vicissitude, it will be the enduring companion 
of your children through life, it will-support them in all the afflictions of 
Providential chastisement, and prepare them for an inheritance in that 
undiscovered country beyond the land of death.— Troy Whig. 
Department of Health. 
HINTS TO THE YOUNG OF BOTH SEXES. 
{Extracts from Johnson's Economy of health.] 
FOURTH SEPTENNIAD- (21 fo28.) 
Typical representation of time .—Time should rest on a winged globe 
my operations, I have completely ! ‘ he en ?bl e m of eternal revolution and motion, while typical of ,hat which 
’• i.u ...l. .. _ _ -V has neither beginning nor end. From his right hand he is nrofnsplv 
changed the nature of an ungrateful soil in the neighborhood of'one of nel ‘ her beginning nor end. From h.s right hand he is profusely scat- 
my manufactories. Over this soil, composed of calcareous earth and light I 1 P™aples and materials of regeneration and life-with his left 
sand, I spread, during several years, some calcined clayey earth; and! band he .s scathing consuming, and obliterating every th.ng which he had 
this land, P upon which®! could formerly raise only stone Jitf has become ,?. ut 
adapted to fiuit containing kernels; and produces excellent wheat, where¬ 
as before it bore only scanty crops of oats and rye. 
Young Men’s Department. 
THE HUSBANDMAN. 
There is one prevailing error among this class of society, which ought 
to be eradicated and destroyed—it is more fatal to the business of agricul¬ 
ture than the growth of Canada thistles, or the destruction of May frosts 
—we mean the neglected education of'the farmer’s children. It is fre¬ 
quently remarked, that education is of little use to the farmer; a very lit 
tie science will do for him. Great knowledge is only beneficial in the 
professional man. Expressions of this sort are founded upon a false esti¬ 
mate of one of the most useful and elevated professions of life. 
If the habitual business of the cultivator does not afford the mental 
powers a field for their most extended exercise, we know not where to 
look for such a field. The study of agriculture unites to the theory of sci¬ 
ence, the very essential ma f erial of its practical parts It make the study 
experimentally and truly learned. 
Nearly all that is useful in our pilgrimage through life is drawn from 
the earth. The main use of science is to explore the minutiae of nature, 
to fathom its secret caverns, and to bring forth the hidden possessions of 
the earth into comprehensible identity. Where, then, is the occupation 
that so richly furnishes a perpetual supply of mental food as that of agri¬ 
culture. In the constant exercises and every day labor of the farmer, the 
business of his science is progressing, if his intellect has been set right 
in the education of his youth. The theory is all essential, for this consti¬ 
tutes the implement by which he is to prosecute the study of human na¬ 
ture to its practical utility. 
between the cornucopia and the scythe—between the right hand and the 
left of this mysterious agent, there exists a fair and ampie field, for ever 
’ flourishing in perennial vigor. The influx of supply, and the efflux of 
; waste are imperceptible to the eye Parts are constantly added, and parts 
'are constantly subtracted; but the whole remains a whole. The body of 
1 nature is ever changing, but never changed. And, as to the human race 
• though the individual dies, the species remain's immortal. The individua’ 
'constitution exhibits for a time this remarkable condition: During many 
years, say from the age of thirty to that of forty,—every particle that is ta¬ 
ken from the material fabric is simultaneously replaced by another particle 
of new matter, and thus the living machine is secured from the effects of 
wear and tear—till the adjusting balance is deranged, and the supply be¬ 
comes inadequate to the waste. 
Majority attained and manhood gained .—To the slave imprisoned in 
the dark Peruvian mine—to the shipwrecked mariner on the desolate isle, 
eyeing, from day to day, the boundless horizon in search of a friendly sail 
—the wheels of time do not appear to revolve.more slowly than they do 
to the minor approaching his majority at the close ol the third septen- 
niad. The happy morn at last arrives that stamps the minor a man—that 
liberates him from the control of parent or guardian—that makes him his 
own master—too often the slave of his own passions, or the victim of de¬ 
signing sycophants! On this, as on many other eventful periods of our 
lives, the greatest apparent good frequently turns out to be the greatest 
evil— and that which seems at the moment to be a dire misfortune, not 
seldom eventuates in a most fortunate dispensation. 
Phases of life .—Up to this point the supply is gteater than the waste, 
and increase of strength, if not ofstature, is the result. In the middle of the 
fourth septenniad the balance is nearly equipoised—and nature only lends 
her aid to sustain the equilibrium for many years afterward. But it is in 
the power of man himself to abridge or extend the period of equilibrium 
in a most extraordinary degree, The period of this adjusted balance, (say 
