The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-07-18

at their own doors, while Americans have to trans
port their breadstufis and provision from three to
four thousand miles to reach the consumer, IL obvi
| ously hard business for our farmers. la the ope-
ration their cultivated fields lose all that is export
! cd, and receive nothing whatever IN retain. but
independently OF this probably more than hall the
butter sent to England from this country is sold as
grease and at half the market price OF good arti
Gle. This Injuries the reputation OF all American
| butter and diminishes the demand for ii abroad
| Equal complaint Is made OF the bad methods IN
which We cure and handle bacon Tor English con
sumption. Our export OF picked pork, bacon, lard
| and live hogs, during the year ending June 3Oh,
1919, was y 9,2I5,SS5. After making due allow
ancc for every disadvantage, it is believed to be
better farm economy TO convert corn INTO pork and
lard TO send abroad, than to export the grain or
! meal BY thus saving all the manure which the
corn will make, the expense OF growing this crop,
and consequently the cost of the pork and lard,
may be reduced from twenty five to fifty per cent.
Ripe, dry corn should be boiled, especially il 1t Ia
ground before tits fed to swine cattle or sheep
And it will more than pay the expense to boil corn
fed to working mules, horses, or oxen.
The statistics Of the raw materials consumed and
wasted in the production of every crop, and in the
food of every animal kept on the farm, deserve to
| be studied with peculiar care. Few appreciate the
immense loss sustained by first nnpoverishng
| arabic lands, and then cultyating them in wheat,
cotton, corn, grass, and other crops with poor re
turn for the labor bestowed In national point OF
view, it is susceptible of demonstration that all la
Dor which impairs the natural productiveness OF
the earth is worse than thrown away, no matter
what the price paid for the products OF such labor
We should ever bear in mind that the continued
| fruitfulness of the soil is above all price
II may not be amss to inquire, what amount OF
| the elements Of bread and meat, cotton, tobacco,
| and other crops, is annually extracted from the
surface of the earth in this country, and never re-
stored to the fields whence II was taken In an
| swer to circulars issued from the Patent Office,
several gentlemen at the South have stated that to
| supply slaves on plantations with bread, including
old and young, requires from II to Is bushels Of
| corn each year. Taking ia bushels as the aver
age consumption, of the % 900 of people in the
United States, of breadstufs, and the aggregate Is
| $50, 900, 900 bushels per annum.
Without deeming it necessary TO go into an
| explanation to prove why it is so, the fact may
| safely be assumed that the elements OF fertility
tanned in all the meat, milk, butter, cheese, po
| tatoes, fruit, and garden vegetables consumed by
the American people, exceeds by ten per cent. the
| amount which exists in the grain consumed. 1t is
sufficient for my purpose, however, to place the es-
innate below ten per cent, and call the icrzing
elements contained in these articles of human food
equal to 3l4 ,000, 900 bushels Of corn. BY adding
| together the sums above named, we have 100000
600 bushels of corn, in effect taken from American
| soils, of which next to none Is ever returned III
nght-so or liquid manure.
The most intelligent wool growers estimate the
| number of sheep in the United States at 30,
900. In ls4O, the number of swine was &c, 3Ol,
1913. At the usual rate of increase, their present
number is not far from $4,000, 900 The number
| of neat cattle in 1910 was 1897 $50 Their pre-
| sent number should be about 9,0O0,O 900. At the
| last census the number Of horses and mules
4,335, 669. Their present number approaches 5000,
600 BY estimating all the poultry as equal to ten
millions of sheep, Ia low estimate there are now
| in the United States hundred millions of do
| mcstic animals, not to count goats and dogs, OF
| which there are some millions. That thcse domes
tic animals draw their subsistence from the soil ID
plain enough; but to say what part Of the elements
of the food consumed is never restored to any inn
proved land is impossible. 1t is below the truth,
In the judgment Of the writer, to say that third
Of all the manure voidcd by the horses mules, cat
| tie, sheep, and swine in the United States, Is
wasted. III SO, the annual loss Is more than equal
| to the production Of two bushels of corn to each
animal; or the aggregate exceeds 2OO,00O,OOO
bushels.
| We have now to estinatc the annual loss Incl
dent to the production OF the great staples Of cotton
tobacco, sugar cane hemp, and flax, not 10 name
smaller crops. Not far from ten millions Of acres
are annually planted in cotton, cane, tobacco, and
hemp. II is serious misfortune that the census of
1860 will throw no light whatever either OF these
| crops, 30 far as the area planted is concerned.
Judging from our knowledge OF the subject, we
should prefer to have field produce 20 bushels of
corn per acre, and part with ali the grain. retaining
the stalks, blades, cobs, weeds aud grass, TO
vate the land, to having it cultivated in cotton to-
bacco, or hemp, in the usual way OF growing these
| crops. The damage done TO the ten millions of
devoted to the culture of these staples Is equal
TO the growth and expectation OF 20Ooo0 900 bush
| els of year. While we have said nothing of
the DTeadstuU5 ana provisions actually sent out OF
tue country, and have conceded that two thirds OF
all the liquid and solid cncretons of ali domestic
animals are saved and turned TO u profitable ac-
cpupt-a statcmet which few farmers familiar with
the husbandry Of many States will endorsc-yet the
aggregate loss is equal to the production Of one
thousand million bushels Of corn, OF Of half that
quantity of wheat.
il may be said that this prodigious annual waste
of the raw material for making human food and
rainent is matter Of no practical consequence
aud that each cubic foot Of soil contains unlim-
tied amount OF tho precise things which nature con
suncs IN forming cotton, wheat, corn, tobacco, gu
gar cane, and other cultivated plants. This is tho
popular opinion, and the practice Of American ag-
riculture Is based this mistaken theory. Those
farmers who do most TO impoyerish their cultivated
fields arc the greatest leor,sts in the country II is
| so much easier TO adopt ready made theory,
handed down from ones father and grandfather,
than 10 study the several substances in a soil re-
qlired TO give generous harvest, that ninety nine
III hundred adopt the former course, How few
agriculturists have any clear knowledge Of the
quantity of any essential element oiwheat or corn
available 70 the growing plant, which any given
amount Of his soil contains The atoms that form
the crop, whether In the earth, or In the atmo-
sphere, are rarely studied by practical farmers.
| Every cultivated plant contains an appreciable
| amount OF potash and phosphorus-not 10 naI4c
other mineral drawn from the soil. Without sorYc
alka and pbosphoric acid, no ono has ever sue,
ceoded in producing TIE Iced Of any cereal plant.
Nor can cotton, potato, or tobacco plant be grown
~ maturity without those soluble earthly salts which
! appear ashes when such plants are carefully
burnt II a farmer were 10 ask the price Of phos-
phorus at shop that deals in the article, he would
lind that II is worth from two to three dollars a
pound The phosphorus Of commerce is mostly OBJ
! tanned from the bones of donestc animals.
The high market price Of this substance proves
its scarcity. There are few soils which contain, in
an available form, 20 much one part Of phospho-
ric acid or one of potash in two thousand; and yet
in the plenitudc OF national folly, we annually
throw away in cities, villages, and on our
farms, enough Of potash and phosphorus to make
five hundred million bushels of wheat, or twice
that quantity of corn Let the agriculturists whS
are troubled TO raise good crops OF wheat, remem
Der that not far from 80 per cent. Of the ncombust
ible earthly matter consumed by nature in forming
the seeds Of this plant, are potash and phosphori,
acid
When will Congress or some State Legislature
appropriate the small sum Of ) 900, needed to de
monstratc in practical way he cost Of making d
nao soil, equal in potash, coda, magnesis, lime
chlorine, soluble silica, phosphorus, sulphur, nitro
gen, and carbon, in the condition Of mould, 10 q
fair virgin earth, before the work Of exhaustion be-
gins'
Statistics Of this kind would be invaluable to the
whole country OF course, the renovation Of land
can be effected much cheaper in some localities
than in others; but the critical study Of the subject