THE CULTIVATOR: 
A Monthly Publication, devoted to »i gviewltuve—-eae'n JS*o. pages. 
Vol. III. ALBANY, NOVEMBER, 1830.—(67 State-street.) No. 9. 
PUBLISHED BY THE N. Y. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
J. BUEL, Conductor. 
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THE CULTIVATOR. 
To improve the Soil and the Mind. 
MEMORANDA, 
FOR THOSE WHO WOULD IMPROVE IN HUSBANDRY. 
Draining, manuring, alternating crops, and root culture, are the 
best and cheapest means of increasing the profits of a tillage farm— 
they form the basis of good husbandry. 
1. Draining —The first requisite is to divest a soil of surplus mois¬ 
ture. Lands that are wet upon the soil or sub-soil, will not bring 
good grain or grass. If the evil is owing to surface water, it stag¬ 
nates in summer, and becomes prejudicial to crops growing upon it, 
and to animals. If it proceeds from springs, it keeps the tempera¬ 
ture of the soil too low for healthy vegetation. In either case it 
prevents the land being worked early, or during wet seasons, and 
retards the decomposition of the vegetable matters, which should 
serve as the food of plants. When properly drained, wet or marshy 
lands are among the most productive soils, as they generally abound 
in vegetable matter, accumulated and preserved by water. With¬ 
out draining, they are comparatively unproductive, and are often 
nuisances. 
2. Manures are the true food of plants, be the speculations of 
theorists what they may. Every farmer may demonstrate this 
truth hi his practice. We can no more obtain good crops from a 
poor soil, than we can obtain good beef from a lean pasture. Vege¬ 
table matters constitute alike the raw material for beef and for 
corn. The elementary matters of both are materially the same.— 
Every vegetable and every animal substance, or whatever has been 
such, however nauseous and offensive, contains food for our farm 
crops; and the fertility of our soil, and the profits of our hus¬ 
bandry, will depend in a great measure upon the economy 
with which we husband this vegetable food, and the judge¬ 
ment with which we apply it to our crops. Without good 
crops we cannot rear good animals; and without animals we cannot 
have dung to enrich our grounds. Every crop we take from a field 
serves more or less to exhaust the soil of fertility; and unless we 
return to it some equivalent in the form of manure, it will in time 
become a barren waste. Again, as animal and vegetable matters 
begin to ferment, and to dissipate their fertilizing properties, as soon 
as they are brought in contact with heat, moisture and air, they 
should be buried in the sod in the spring at farthest, in an incipient 
state of fermentation. And as the hoed crops, such as corn, pota¬ 
toes, beans, ruta baga, &c. thrive best upon the volatile parts of 
manure, the long manure should be fed to them. The farmer who 
has a good soil, should take care to keep it good; and he who has 
a poor soil should strive constantly to make it better, as every ad¬ 
vance he makes in improving it, increases his productive capital.— 
This preservation, or increase of fertility, cannot be well effected, 
without a due regard to 
3. Alternating Crops. Few soils will bear a repetition of the 
same crop for successive years, even with the aid of dung, without 
diminution of product, whether in tillage or grass. One reason of 
this is, that each kind of crop takes from the soil a specific food, 
which other kinds do not take in like quantity. Hence, during an 
intermission of four or five years there is ordinarily restored to the 
soil the specific food of th.at kind which it is capable of growing. 
Cultivated crops are sometimes grouped, in alternate husbandry, in 
NO. 9 . -VOL. III. 
three classes, viz. dry crops, embracing all the small grains, and 
which are most exhausting; 2d, grass crops, embracing timothy, or¬ 
chard grass and other perrenial varieties, which exhaust less, but 
which run out, or sensibly diminish in product, in a few years ; and 
3d, green crops, comprising clover, turnips, Sic., which pulverize 
and ameliorate the ’soil, and exhaust least of all. Where conve¬ 
nient, a crop of one of each of these classes should follow in succes¬ 
sion, the grass continuing to occupy the ground while it continues to 
yield a good crop of hay. If retained too long in grass, the soil 
becomes too compact, and impervious to the genial influences of heat 
and air. It is particularly recommended, that two dry crops should 
not succeed each other, except wheat or rye may follow oats, when 
the latter is made a fallow crop upon an old grass ley. Although 
the deterioration under a bad system of cropping may be slow, and 
almost imperceptible, yet both science and experience teach U3 
that it is inevitable, and fatal to the ultimate hopes of the husband¬ 
man. Many of the old states afford lamentable evidence of this 
truth. 
4. Root Culture is one of the best gifts which modern improve¬ 
ment has bestowed upon husbandry. It gives the most animal food 
with the least labor ; it is, under good management, the most cer¬ 
tain in its returns; it gives the most manure; it best ameliorates 
the soil, and fits it for dry crops; and it affords an important link in 
the chain of alternation. It is considered the basis of good husband¬ 
ry in Great Britain, Flanders, Germany and France, and has trans- 
'ormed the comity of Norfolk from a waste to the most profitable 
district in England. Highly as the beet culture is prized in-France, 
as affording a material for the profitable fabrication of sugar, it is 
no less valued as an alternating root crop, and as affording a mate¬ 
rial for making good beef and good mutton. The roots that may 
enter extensively into our husbandry, are the potatoe (and the va¬ 
rieties of these that are best for table, afford the most nutriment 
to cattle) ruta baga, mangold wurtzel, carrot, parsnip and sugar 
beet. 
As subsidiary to the preceding cardinal points in good fanning, 
we give the following, which, although they may appear to many to 
be hackneyed truisms, are nevertheless so important as to be worth 
often repeating. 
5. Keep none but good farm stock, whether as regards breeds or 
individuals. Sell the worst of your flocks. Like produces like; 
and the gain in breeding from the best you have, greatly counterba¬ 
lances the extra price that the prime individual will bring in the 
market. A cow that gives eighteen quarts of milk per day in J une, costs 
no more in her keep than one that gives but six quarts ; yet the 
product of the first is three-fold, and the profits four-fold, those of 
the latter. The fleece of the Saxon or Merino sheep is twice as 
valuable as that of the common one, though the cost of keeping 
them is equal. And the same corn that will make 100 lbs. of pork 
upon a long-legged, long-snouted, razor-backed hog, will put 150 or 
200 lbs. upon the frame of a Berkshire or other improved breed. 
6. Keep your farm stock well. A certain quantity of food must 
be given to keep them alive, all beyond'this goes to increase growth, 
or is converted into meat, or milk, or wool; and if a little extra 
food is in this way profitable, much must be proportionably more so, 
for the more food you thus convert, the greater your return in la¬ 
bor, flesh and milk. 
7. Cultivate no more land than you can improve, with a reasona¬ 
ble certainty of handsome net profit, embracing in the items of ex¬ 
penditure the interest on its value, fences, taxes, manure and labor. 
The good farmer, who raises 80 bushels of corn on one acre of land, 
clears the price of 50 bushels, which at 50 cents the bushel, is $25. 
The poor farmer, who cultivates four acres of corn, and gets 30 
bushels on an acre, barely gets compensated for his labor and ex¬ 
pense. We estimate the expense of raising and harvesting an 
acre of corn at $15, or the price of 30 bushels of the grain. 
8. Buy good implements and tools, though they cost more than 
poor ones, and always keep them in repair for use. A good plough 
is drawn with half the team that a bad one is, and does the work 
twice as well, provided the ploughman knows how to use it. One 
