Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1851-11-14
rhs NATIONAL Igneranse Of Ar.sss.ural 1n.ers.t


The National Ignorance the Agricultural Interest.
It is painful truth, that both the press and the
more active minds of the country large, strk
ngy ignorant of the condition of agriculture in all
of the older states and no less painful, that the
farmers, " ho not ignorant of it, body,
not intelligent enough to know how to remedy the
evil.
doubtless inquire. Weanswer, the miserable system
of farming steadily pursued by eght-tenths of all
the farmers of this country since its first settlement
system which proceeds upon the principle of ia
king many crops from the land with as little man
ure as possible-until its productive powers ex-
hausted. and then--emigratng to some part of
the country where they apply the same practice
to a new soil. It requires far less knowledge and
capital to wear out good soil and abandon it for
another than to cultivate good soil to maintain
its productive powers for years, unimpaired. Ac-
cordingly he emigration is always THE WEST y
There, is the Arcadia of the American farmer
there are the acres which need but to be broken up
by the pillow, to yield their thirty forty bushels of
wheat to the acre. Hence the full tide of far
mers or farmers sons, always sets westward, and
lands at home are left in a comparatively exhausted
and barren state and hence. too the slow progress
of farming an honest art where everybody practi-
ces it as a highway robber.
There are, doubtless. many superficial thinkers,
who consider these western soils erhGusess- prai-
ries where crop after crop can be taken by genera
ton after generation. There was never greater
faacy. There are acres and acres of land in the
counties bordering on the Hudson-such counties as
Duchess and Albany-from which the early settlers
reaped their thirty to forty bushels of wheat to the
acre. easily their great grand children do now
in the fertile lands of the valley of the Msss-
sipp. Yet these very yield only twelve
or fourteen bushels each, and the average yield
of the county Of Duehess-one Of the most fertile
and best managed on the Hudson. is at the present
moment only six bushels to the acre! One Of our
nln haS made
that of the twelve millions of ofcultyated land
in the State of New York eight millions are in the
hands of the " SINNERS who take away everything
from the SOIL and put nothing back three millions
in the hands of farmers who manage them as to
make the lands barely hold their own, while one
million of acres well farmed, to be under a
high and productive state Of fertility. And New
York is confessedy of the most substantial ofa
the older states. Even Ohio. newly settled she
is. begins to fall off per acre. in her annual wheat
crop, and before fifty years will if the present sys
TEN continues be considered out soil.
The evil at the bottom Of all this false system OF
husbandry, is no mystery. rich soil contains on J
given quantity Of vegetable and mineral food fol
plants Every crop grown upon fertile soil takes
from it certain amount of these substances, es
sential to the growth Of another crop. If these
crops like most of our grain crops, sent away
and consumed in other parts Of the country-as il
the great cities, and Of their essential elements
in the way of vegetable matter lime. potash sc.
that eventually the soil mast become barren mis-
erably Improbable And such is unfortunately the
fact. Instead of maintaining many animals as
possissbe upon the farm and carefully restoring t.
the soil in the shape of animal and mineral manure
all those elements needfu to the growth Of future
vegetables farmers send nearly all their crop
| for sale in cities and allow all the valuable anC
mineral products of their crops to go to waste il
those cities.
"Oh butt the farmer upon worn out land vii
say, " we cannot afford to pay for all the labor ne
cessary for the high farming you advocate" Arr
you quite sure of that assertion We suspect if yol
were to enter carefully into the calculation of hi
profit and loss in his system Of trade you would fn'
that the difference in value between crop Of l:
bushels and another Of 80 bushels of wheat to TIL
acre, would leave handsome profit to the farme
who would pursue with method and energy, th
practice of never taking atom of food from TIL
earth without returning it, and the excrement O
animals fed upon crops will restore to the soil al
the needful elements taken from it by those crops
The principle has been demonstrated over AM
again, but the difficulty is to get farmers to be
lieve it.