Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1855-03-03
farmsr's Dtnartmfnt.
View Of American Agriculture.
BIZ tchat processes the earth IS impoverished.

impaired
i. BY removing its natural products: as
when prare is annually mOwn for series OF
wears, and all the hay removed, and no manure
or other fertilizer returned. In Europe, where
forest culture is practiced, experience has
shown that to remove the leaves that annually
fail upon the ground to rot and form moul't
over the roots Of trees, is sure to lmpoYerlSh
the land and iniUre its valuable products.-
These leaves as well as prarie grass, contain
both earthly minerals called laOrglhlc matter,
and eombustible elements usually designated
by the term organic matter In burning over
prairies, the latter portion of the plants con-
sumed is alone removed from the sell; their
ashes remain on the ground where the plants
grew. Pastures arc deterioated by the loss of
the grass carried off in the stomachs Of domestic
animals.
2. Soils are impoverished by tillage without
cropping, or removing any plant whatever
No fact IN agriculture is more important than
this All tillage is purely an artificial and
withal most unnatural operation. Nature
never ploughs, nor hoes the earth to promote
the growth of vegetation. Her highest pro-
ductiveness is the result of laws, which every
farmer should carefully study and learn to
follow, in the renovation of cultivated fields.
Although all tilage is mechanical process,
vet its effects are both chemical and physical
on the soil So far as the chemical results of
tiIlage are concerned, they ale quite indepen-
dent of all crops and other plants. 1t is not
so easy task as some may suppose to explain
in q few plain words, the several changes
wrought in the mould and organic part Of soils,
by the plough, spade, and hoe. The mechanical
and physical effects of tillage are very obvious
to eyery cultivator The earth is Dlell0Ired-
rendered exceedingly porous and admirably
fitted not only to absorb atmospheric air, and
all gaseous bodies, but to coadenSe them in the
nnumerable pores of the friable mass The
same causes which increase the fertility OF a
faIlowed field exhaust the soil, if long Contin-
ued although no crop should be grown upon
it. If however, crop of weeds, grass peas,
or clover be grown and allowed to die and rot
on the ground or be ploughed in, the soil will
be enriched by the operation But ifa field be
annually ploughed and hOed, rs crop Of corn,
tobacco, cotton or Sugar-cane, for twenty-five
wears, and no plant whatever be allowed to
grow on its surface, the mechanical and chemi-
cal changes, associated as they must be with
the teachings and washings of innumerabe
rains, would result in removing from the surface
of the earth nearly or quite all of its vegetable
mould and the soluble mineral food Of plants
To test this principle in nature, suppose
farmer were to apply twenty-five loads Of well
rotted stable manure upon an acre OF land, and
plough, harrow, and hoe the ground twenty
five wears, as for crops Of corn or cotton, but
plant nothing and permit neither grass nor
weeds to grow thereon. Would any of the
dissolved elements of this manure remain that
length Of time in the surface soil 4! Certainly
not. If manure will decompose and disappear
like wood consumed in a fireplace, may not
vegetable mould do so likewise And if the
mineral known as common salt and salts Of
lime and potash will readily dissolve on the
ground in rain water, and pass in state of
solution deep into the earth and reappear in
springs, wells and rivuets, may not similar
minerals, naturally i'll the soil, and rendered.
soluble by tillage, be also dissolved and washed
out of the mellow ground into the compact
suh-sol or into swamps, rivers and the ocean?
The principal object ofploughing and hoeing
is to increase the quantity of available food for
the crop; but while the plants are present in
the soil and growing it is By 10 means certain
that all the manure or other fertilizers applied
to the land, or all the elements of the crop
naturally in the soil enter the roots of cult
Under certain circumstances, the loss by
teaching and solar influences is very large. In
producing small crops Of corn, cotton, wheat,
and other plants the waste of raw material is
greater in proportion to the harvest, than in
large crops whose roots and foliage cover the
surface both in and above the soil universally.
Small corn or cotton plants, and these quite
distant one from another, greatly favor the
ill IL
washing away of all soluble elements
TWoge 0ad cropping exhaust land faster
than it can he done in any other way short of
carting off the surface soil in mass. The
degree of injury inflicted by this operation is
very variable: not only on different fields, and
soils, but on the same surface at different times
and seasons. \ light, open, sandy soil that
has no clay foundation will not bear ploughing
and cropping so long, with so small deterora-
ton, as the same soil with clay sub-soil-
Light, sandy soil abounds in North Carolina,
Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and South
Carolina, and most Of these when fresh yield
fair crops. Their red clay lands are not so
easily worked but are more enduring and
generally more productive
The limestone soils of the Cherokee country,
of Tennessee, Kentucky Missouri and other
States, are altogether ul1efent from any form
ed from the debris of granite, metamporic, and
sand rocks. 1t is impossible to form an intelli-
gent opinion of the exhaustion of soil by any
given amount of tillage and cropping, without
knowing something Of the parent rocks from
which the earth was derived, and something of
its physical and chemical properties. A know
ledge of the principles of geology and Chemistry
is Invaluable to one who desires to understand
in advance what are the natural capabilities of
any arabic land; and what elements of crops
it is most likely to have in too small guam
tity.
1t often happens that soil partakes very
little Of the character of the rock that lies but
twenty or thirty inches below its surface
This is owing to the circumstance that a