The Arkansas banner., 1843-10-21

i drawn from the soil and consequently the fertility of the soil is diminished, in propor- ton to the number and amount of the crops which are carried off. However rich, there fore. soil may be naturally, 1t must be evl- dent. that every crop serves to diminish It's | fertility-that it becomes poorer and poorer every year until 1t is no longer worth cultl- vating-unless fertility is kept up by restor- ing to it the vegetable matters, or large DOT ton of them, which have been carried oil We have seen all this proved, in numerous f instances, under the old system of farming. | To prevent this decrease of fertility Is one of the improvements of modern husbandry ; and t IS preremted by maturing and alternating crops. Under the old system, the rich lands of the West will deteriorate till they are no better than those on the Atlantic border Under the system of maturing and alterna- ting, the ordinary lands of Flanders have been made to maintain their natural fertility for hundreds of years, and those of China for thousands of years; and many et our worn out lands are now being in like manner renovated.
 Again. That field of corn contains pre- cisely what is necessary to constitute another field of corn. If 1t is all left to rot on the ground, and permitted to decompose and mingle again with the soil, 1t will make an- other like crop. But 1t is carried to the barn; the grain is consumed and the stocks and shucks are eaten by the farm stock, or litter ed in the yard. If, after serving these pur poses of the eultivator, the residue of the crop-the dung, the stalks, &c.,-were care fully returned and blended with the soil, even then the deterioration of the field would be triAing. But this is seldom the case; these elements of fertility are suffered to waste, and if any, but small portion of them are res tored to the soil. The moment these stocks or the cattle dung, begin to ferment, their de- composition, or chemical separation of their parts, commeuces-and this always takes place in the presence of heat, moisture, and air-the gaseous matters, which they neces- sarily contained, and which are necessary to the coming crop, become disengaged and es- cape; the rains saturate and leach the mass, and carry off other matters which formed a part of the old, and which are also necessary to the new crop; and if fermentation is per- mitted to exhaust its powers on the mass, so as to reduce it to the form of muck, one half that constituted the old crop, and which the new crop will want, is rretrievably lost; but if the dung and stocks of the old crop, blend- ed and saturated as they will be in the cattle yard, are restored to the soil, before fermen- tation and rain have dissipated their riches, the gases and liquids disengaged by fermen- tation, will be absorbed by the soil, and held in reserve for the next crop. Hence the pro- priety of applying dung before it has routed; or of applying the dung made in the winter to the spring crop; and hence the loss which ensues to the farmer from neglecting to con- vert to manure all the animal and vegetable refuse of his farm and household. Plants are cannibals; or in other words, they not only [ live upon plants, but they thrive best upon their own species. Nature is constantly changing dead into living vegetable matter. for the use of man, and 1t should be the bu- siness of the farmer to study her laws, and to cooperate in her benefeent designs.
 Many of the objections to the use of long manure, in England, lose their force here.- Our summers are much warmer than hers. and vegetable matters undergo more speedy decomposition in our soil than in hers. The pertinent question is, does long manure de- compose, when buried in the soil, in time to serve the crop' When put into the hill, or drill, we admit that it often does not; but when spread upon the whole surface, and properly buried, as we think il always should be, we believe 1t never fails to rot the first season, and in time for the corn crop. The late John Taylor, of Virginia, who was a scientific and extensively practical farmer, was in the habit of burying with the plough, in his corn fields, the spray and branches of forest trees and shrubs, as means of inducing fertility, and he found benefit in the practice. Great Britain, besides, cultivates no crop that is so fit recipient for long manure as our Indian corn, which enters so largely into our system of husbandry as to absorb, with po- tatoes, all the long manure of spring-and which is admirably fitted to convert this long manure into proper food for dry crops by the subsequent autumn. We repeat here what we have before remarked, that unfermented dung greatly accelerates the growth of straw and stalk-the stem, culml, or main body of an herbaceous plant-but that 1t is i'll suited to the perfecting and maturing of the seed- that unfermented dung developes its greatest power during the heats of summer, when the seeds of the several grains are forming that hence itis improper to apply it to these crops j; but that when applied to corn, or other au- tumnal ripening crops, it generates benef- cial warmth in the soil, and by the gases evolved, causes vigorous growth of stocks, at a season most important, that fermenta- ton subsidies before the formation of the seed, and that it then imparts to the crop the alment best fitted to bring it to perfection. advocate the use of rotten dung, are not there fore applicable to our climate and culture.
 Cultiuator.
 Chinese La5orers.-The throwing open of the Chinese empire, amongst it's other ef- fleets, may bring the labor of its hordes of