New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-08-24
THE SOIL AND IT'S IMpROvERs.

THE SOIL AND ITS IMPROyERs.
That he is public benefactor who causes
two blades of grass to grow where but one
grew before, is a truth which needs no
elucidation but that duplication of the
aggregate harvests Of our Country is not
merely practicable but would be signally
prohtable-this truth not yet adequately
impressed on the public mind. The pop
ular deficiency is rather want of thought
than want of knowledge. Ask severay
the next ten farmers you meet if they do
not think our cutivators generally overrun
too much land,-if they DO not pow too
shallow, and manure too light, and SOW too
late, and till too sovenly and nine of the
ten will unhesitatingly answer Yes. Then
take pains to inquire carefully as to the
habits of these same farmers, and you will
find five or six Of them practcing habitu
ally the very errors they so freely con-
demn-shallow blowing. scanty fertilizing,
late sowing, shabby tilling-and probably
feeding off their meadows, gnawing down
their pastures, keeping more stock than
they can feed well and so impoyerishing
their land from year TO year. ''ly people
do not consider says the Good Book; they
know, if they would only use and apply
their knowledge far better than they do
But two-thirds of the farmers suppose the
great truths revealed to Agriculture by
Science applicable every where but on their
own farms. One with two hundred acres
will say if pressed to do better 20 | can't
afford to drain and subsoil, and buy guanO
'or phosphates, and so put my land into
the best condition; haven't the means.'-
But, my good Sir don't you understand
that you could turn off more produce from
fifty acres, thoroughly cultivated, than you
do from your whole two hundred =
We'll, perhaps | might. - Then why not
sell enough of your arabic lan1 to pay for
putting the residue in the highest condi
ton Can't you realize that it is sheer,
ruinous uaste to fence, plow, plant, till and
harvest fire acres for hundred bushels of
Indian Corn, when that quantity might
surely be grown on tt0O acres Can't you
understand that ten acres of Grass that will
yield twenty-five tunS of good Hay, are
more profitable than growing those same
twenty-five tuns on twenty-five to thirty
acres 20 yes, ut-.'-'But what -
%, | don't believe in withdrawing forest
trees and laying stone walls in mortar.
I'm none of your gentlemen farmers-l
have to make my farm support me, instead
of my business supporting it.'-And SO the
hard- pressed cultiyator slides off into fog
of his own raising, and perseveres in aver
aging twenty bushels of grain or less than
a tun of grass to each arabic acre, mainly
because he is mentally too sluggish and
unenterprisiDg to move out of the jog trot
ways of his grandfather.
And still 'the world does move'-not
wholly at Railroad pace, nor in a Decline,
but in slouchy, zig-zag, spring halt fash
ion, which, provoking as it is, is better
than nothing. We ought to have Ma
tional Bureau of Agriculture, with at least
100000 a year judiciously expended in
introducing and naturalizing new seeds,
plants, fruits, roots and trees, with a view
to Agricultural improvement. We have
no dOubt that the Labor now devoted ia
our Country to the production of Cotton,
Tobacco, Grain and Meat for expectation
might in good part be employed in the pro-
duction Of Tea, Silk, Flax, Beet Sugar and
other staples in such manner as immense
ly to increase our resources and add many
Millions annually to the wealth of the
Country. But the introduction of a new
department of Industry is a work of years,
involving heavy outlay in the accimation
of plants, the acquisition of Experience and
Manual Skill, the invention or adaptation
of Machinery, &c. &c. If private citi-
zen were to spend $4,000 in establishing
the Tea Culture in this Country, his next
neighbor, with every body else, might
coolly appropriate the benefits of the en-
terprise to his own use, leaving him who
bad enriched the Country to the extent of
countless Millions bankrupt for his pains.
There is no plausible reason why such
grea, National objects should be left to the
chances and delays of individual effort, but
many urgent and obvious reasons why they
should not be.
And still in snita of narvar,o - I |