The Southern journal., 1846-01-17
/, AGRICULTURAL.
A Word with Farmers.


man Of one vocation trying to tell
others how 10 do their own business
and this often deters people from Civ.
ing good and needed advice. Ar
editor may fairly claim exemption
from this mistaken modesty and we
having spent our early years at wori
on farm, and regarded agriculture
with deep interest ever since, claim q
special right to speak plainly to the
farming community. Bear with U:
then, few moments, farming friends.
Taking hasty trip TO Saratoga
some weeks since, we were struck
with two or three aspects of the coun.
try. One was the severe suffering
from drought on the rich intervales oi
the Hudson river, especially above
Troy. There were. hundreds Of acres
Of gently sloping land, devoted to
garden and tillage, burnt up by
drought as though fire had run
through it, and not yielding over one
third Of fair crop. Yet right beside
that parched intervale, .an mole
river sufficient to drench the whole
daily without sensible dimunition of
ito waters; while the plain was crossed
almost every mile by stream coming
down from the hills to swell the rivers
current. How can it be that the
owners Of these fertile acres suffer
Themselves to be divested Of half the
reward Of their toll as often as every
other year, for want Of irrigation?
How easy it would be for science or
skill to provide for the thorough
moistening ofthose intervales at pleas
ure, either by damming the streams
as they issue from the hills, and
carrying their waters along the bases
to be d,ffused over the plain, or by
drawing supplies, by means of wind
mills or steam, from the Hudson itself!
But nothing Of the sort is done; the
earth is left TO parch, and itsvegetation
to wither.. The mere loss in the
quantity Of product, is but an item;
the vegetables there cultivated would
have commanded double the price if
hastened forward for early consump-
ton, while Saratoga and all the inland
towns we're full Of pleasure-seeking
travellers, thus they did when ulti~
mately it for the table. That they
would have been far more juicy and
palateable also, if abundantly sur>
piled with water, need not be urged.
Irrigation and Deep Ploughing.-
These must be generally adopted in
our country. We blindly follow our
British an cestors in neglecting the
former, without rejecting that sun
shine is almost as rare in England as
rain is here. As to deep ploughing,
all science, all practice, al! authority,
recommend it, and yet three-fourths
Of our farmers persist in skinning
their land over from FIVE 10 eight inch
deep, or not half what is required
We saw field after field of corn which
will not yild ten bushels to the acre,
land poor stuff at that,) which might
have qeen put up to twenty, by deep
ploughing alone. Of course, one
year would not exhibit all the benefit
of this culture, though even the first
year, it dry one, would show its de.
cided advantage; but let land have
time TO get used to deep ploughing
and it will tell you plainly how it rel
ishes that treatment. And the mar
who ploughs deep, is pretty apt TO pu
something else into The soil as well a
iron. He will usually have mucl
and peat from his swamps, and noble
compost heap near bis barn.
We hear farmers complain, ant
most truly, that they can make moth
ing by their business; and this Will
they are paying taxes, keeping u
fences, aud perhaps paying mortgage
interest on twice as much land as the