A CONSOLIDATION OF DUEL’S CULTIVATOR AND THE GENESEE FARMER. 
“AGRICULTURE, AT ONCE THE CAUSE AND EV IDENCE OF CIVILIZATION.” _ -■ 
Cult. Yol. YII No. 4. ALBANY, N. Y. APRIL, 1840. Cult, and Far. Yol. I — No. 4. 
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Agricultural Geology, 
Perhaps there is no branch of general science, especi¬ 
ally among those that are comparatively new,if we make 
chemistry an exception, that has had so direct and influ¬ 
ential a hearing on agriculture as geology. By a care¬ 
ful examination of the surface of the earth, its moun¬ 
tains, hills, plains,and ravines ; its rocks and precipices; 
those places that exhibit the greatest proofs of disturb¬ 
ance and disruption of the strata, a theory of the forma¬ 
tion of the earth, and the general principles that have 
governed the changes it has evidently undergone, has 
been produced, most interesting to the theologian, the 
man of science, and, in its results, to the agriculturist. 
It has been demonstrated that however broken and de¬ 
ranged the crust of the earth may be, there is a regular¬ 
ity in the strata that compose it—a sameness in the or¬ 
der of position wherever they occur, that conclusively 
proves the uniformity and universality of the causes 
that have produced the appearances we now witness. 
If we can not go back to a period in the history of the 
earth, when nothing was, we can clearly and satisfacto¬ 
rily mark the points where vegetable and animal life 
commenced, and of course the time when darkness and 
silence brooded over the earth—a time, since which we 
are authorized to say, all the various, and beautiful,’and 
useful forms of organized life, that now appear around 
us, have had their commencement. In the strata of the 
earth, modern science has discovered a mighty volume 
on which are inscribed in stone, durable as the moun¬ 
tains, the characters that reveal the beginning of the 
present order of things, as well as exhibit the most strik¬ 
ing proofs of the power and wisdom of the Almighty 
Architect. Here, as leaf after leaf of the pages are un¬ 
folded, we see how the earth, by its numerous grada- 
I tions and successive changes, has been prepared for the 
j residence of man ; and can trace the formation of those 
soils, without which the plants necessary to his subsist¬ 
ence could not have existed. Many good men have ap¬ 
prehended that the discoveries connected with geology, 
were of a nature to conflict with the truths of revela¬ 
tion. Such a supposition we consider groundless; truth 
can never come in conflict with, or contradict itself; and 
however much our commonly received interpretations 
may he shaken, truth itself can never he disturbed, and 
science can never he legitimately made subservient to 
the disparagement or overthrow of sound morals and 
virtue. 
In the investigations necessary to show the connection 
between a proper understanding of geology and agricul¬ 
ture, the origin of the planet on which ive live, and its 
consistence or temperature, in the earlier periods of its 
formation, are comparatively of little consequence. That 
the earth was once in a semi-fluid state, the greater 
equatorial diameter would seem to prove, as the pre¬ 
sent form is precisely the one which a revolving body in 
such a state would assume ; and that the mass was sub¬ 
jected to an intense heat, seems equally clear from the 
crystalline character of the oldest rocks of the globe. 
That the interior of the earth is at present subject to the 
same heat, seems probable, from the law that regulates 
the distribution of heat, and the increase of temperature 
shown to exist in the interior of the earth, by Artesian 
wells, and wherever the surface has been penetrated to 
any considerable depth. Some sections of the globe 
seem to he more influenced by the central heat of the 
earth than others, producing in the same latitude a 
widely different temperature; and giving to the vegeta¬ 
tion, and to the surface, a marked character of compara¬ 
tively recent origin. As an instance of this, we may 
mention the country between the Rocky Mountains and 
the Pacific, where a temperature higher than on any 
other part of the globe, in the same parallel, prevails, 
and the whole country seems hut recently to have been 
subjected to vulcanian agency. 
The most common division of the materials that con¬ 
stitute the crust of our planet, has been into primary, 
transition, secondary, and tertiary formations, and, 
though capable of some modifications, it is probable this 
arrangement is as satisfactory as any other, for popular 
purposes. Underneath the whole surface of the earth, 
at various depths, and every where the lowest of the 
rocks, so far as science has been able to ascertain, lies 
the first of the above divisions. These rocks are un- 
stratitied, or contain no traces of deposition, until the 
upper part of the mass is approached. The agency of 
heat, and the admission of water to the metallic basis of 
the earths and alkalies, offer two causes, which either 
singly or conjointly, seem sufficient to explain the pro¬ 
duction and state of the mineral ingredients of these 
rocks. Prof. Buckland states, the number of distinct 
varieties of the crystalline unstratified rocks to he 
eight; and that there are twenty-eight well defined divi¬ 
sions of the stratified or superior formations. As how¬ 
ever the soils produced from every variety of the prima¬ 
ry rocks, (unless we except the primitive limestone,) 
possess in general the same essential properties, the dis¬ 
tinctions are more in name than reality, so far as the 
purpose of this paper is concerned. The most remark¬ 
able features of the primary rocks is their crystalline 
character, and the total absence in them of all organic 
remains. Nothing having life, vegetable or animal, 
seems to have been capable of enduring the heat that 
prevailed at the time of their formation. Thus geology 
has established two facts of the most important kind, 
the first proving that existing species have had a begin¬ 
ning at a comparatively recent period of our globe; and 
the second, that these have been preceded by several 
other systems of animal and vegetable life—and as the 
beginning of these is also demonstrated, the theory of 
infinite succession is clearly untenable, when applied to 
plants and animals. 
In the transition series of rocks, is included all kinds 
of stratified rocks, from the slates in which the first 
traces of animal or vegetable remains are discovered, to 
the termination of the great coal formation. Lyell and 
Buckland remark, that the animal remains in the more 
ancient of these, rocks, or the slate group, differ in spe¬ 
cies from those in later or carboniferous rocks of the 
same series. The transition rocks present alternations 
of slate and shales, sandstones, limestones, and conglom¬ 
erate rocks, all showing, by their composition and struc¬ 
ture, and the remains of organic life they contain, that 
they were deposited in form of mud, sand, or pebbles in 
deep waters, or in some cases those that were violently 
agitated. A very large proportion of all soils is made 
from the disintegration of the transition series of rocks, 
and a knowledge of the nature of those belonging to this 
class is particularly needful to the agriculturist. 
The secondary series of rocks are composed of those 
that lie above the great coal formations ; and are com¬ 
posed of extensive beds of sand or sandstone, alternat¬ 
ing with pebbles, clay, marl, and limestones. These 
strata have evidently been derived from the destruction 
of older, or primary and transition strata, and it is not 
uncommon in these successive layers to he able to trace 
the origin of the materials from which they were con¬ 
stituted. The scale on which this disintegration or 
breaking up of the older masses, the distance of their 
transportation, and the vast amount of their deposition, 
prove the action of disturbing causes of the greatest 
force and magnitude. It is to the secondary formation 
that we owe most of the soils adapted to human indus¬ 
try, and the arrangement of the strata seems admirably 
adapted to the wants of the occupiers of the surface. In 
the language of Dr. Buckland, “ the movements of the 
waters, by which the materials of strata have been 
transported to their present place, have caused them to 
be intermixed in such a manner, and in such propor¬ 
tions, as are in various degrees favorable to the growth 
of the different vegetable productions which man re¬ 
quires for himself and the domestic animals he has col¬ 
lected around him.” One of the most beneficial results 
of this intermixture of permeable and impermeable 
strata, is the providing a plentiful supply of water for 
our wells, springs, and rivers, without which a country 
must be uninhabitable, and which could not exist, were 
it not for this formation and arrangement of the earth’s 
surface. 
The tertiary formations, are chiefly distinguished 
from those of the secondary class, by the repeated alter¬ 
nations of marine deposits with those of fresh water. 
Attention to these facts was first induced by an exami¬ 
nation of the deports above the chalk or lime formation 
of Paris, and for some time were supposed to he pecu¬ 
liar to that neighborhood. A comparison of the strata 
there, and fossils embedded in them, with others in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the world, hearing the same relative po¬ 
sition to the other formations, has, however, shown that 
this formation is of great extent, and that a large part 
of the earth has been subjected to several successive re¬ 
volutions and submersions—part of the time in waters 
salt, and part in those that were fresh. 
Above these formations lie two others, more or less 
extensively diffused—the first, is that coating of bould¬ 
ers, gravel, and sand, mixed with clay or loam, which 
is spread over almost every part of the earth’s surface, 
and which has been obviously mingled confusedly toge¬ 
ther by powerful currents of water, subsequent to the 
deposition of the regular strata, and this is called dilu¬ 
vium. The deposition of this mass, from its containing 
materials from all the other strata, and its consequent 
lateness of formation, has by many been considered as 
the effect of the Noahian deluge, how correctly we do 
not pretend to say. The other formation to which we 
have alluded, is that which is now constantly going on 
from the deposition matter brought down by streams 
from mountains and hills, and carried by floods to val¬ 
leys, or the sea, and there left—constituting the richest 
and most fertile of soils. This is called alluvium -, hut 
in extent as compared with diluvium, or any other of 
the previous formations, must be considered as very li¬ 
mited. 
Until within a few years, the study and comparison 
of the remains of former vegetable and animal life, call¬ 
ed fossils, abounding in most of the strata above the 
primary series, though their existence was well under¬ 
stood, had received very little attention; and it is to 
Cuvier that the world is principally indebted for the 
discovery and exploration of this new world. Many 
able men have followed in the path pointed out by him, 
and the result has been that each of the series we have 
named, and many of the most prominent strata in each 
series, have their peculiar fossil plants and animals, 
marking the separation and distinct age of these se¬ 
ries or strata, from the others. So marked are these 
remains, that the geologist is now able, from the inspec¬ 
tion of a fossil or boulder, to assign it its place in the 
series, with as much certainty and accuracy, as the ana¬ 
tomist disposes of the separate and displaced bones of a 
skeleton. The most beautiful and striking results of 
the study of organic remains may be found in the geo¬ 
logical works of Buckland or Lyell. 
“ -AT geologists and chemists are agreed in consider¬ 
ing soils as resulting from the abrasion, disintegration, 
and decomposition of rocks, with the addition of certain 
saline, vegetable, and animal substances. Ever since 
the deposition of rocks, various agents have been ope¬ 
rating upon them to wear them doivn, to cause them to 
crumble or disintegrate, and often to decompose them 
into their proximate or ultimate principles, while they 
have been continually receiving vegetable and animal 
substances with soluble salts. * * * Now we find, 
that nearly all the rocks which exist in large quantity, 
are composed chiefly of silica., alumina, lime, and oxide 
of iron, and these are the ingredients that are found al¬ 
most invariably in soils. Silica is in the largest quan¬ 
tity both in rocks and in soils, alumina next, while tie 
other ingredients are in much smaller proportions. * 
* * To give a numerical statement, derived from nu¬ 
merous anafysis, such rocks as most of those in New- 
England, contain 66 per cent of silica, 16 per cent of 
alumina, 6 or 7 per cent of potassa, 5 per cent of oxide 
of iron, and of lime and magnesia, a much less quantity j 
