Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-05-13


largest of any State In the Union, that of Mas
lsachusetts, was but sixteen bushels per acre;
and this, with the leanest soil, proves her agrl-
cultural science far in advance Of her sister
States While the crop of cotton in the new
lands of Texas and Arkansas was seven hundred
to seven hundred and fifty pounds per acre, it
was but three hundred and twenty pounds per
acre in the older cultivated fields Of South Caro-
lima,
In a Southern Journal I find the following
statement
SAN Alabama planter says that cotton has destroyed
than earthquakes volcanic erupons. Witness the red
hills of Georgia and South Carolina which have produced
cotton till the last dying gasp of the soil forbade any further
attempt at civilizations and the land turned out to nature,
reminds the traveller he views the diapdaed condition
OF the c0untoy, OF the ruins of ancient Greece"
In Virginia, the crop of tobacco in 1850, was
less than that of 1910, by over eighteen million
pounds, No crop has proved more destructive
to the fertility of the soil than the tobacco crop,
and this staple commodity, unless a cheap and
effective remedy can be found, must be either
banished or it will Danish the cultiyators. In
this State, where tobacco, corn, and wheat have
been continued for a century, many districtsare
no longer cultivated. Liebig says, =" that from
every acre of this land, there were removed in
the space OF one hundred years, twelve hundred
pounds of alkalies, in leaves, grain and straw. :"
In letter Of Gen. Washington, dated August
., 1856, to a friend (Arthur Young) in Eng
land, he writes:
The system of agriculture, II the epithet system can be
Sppeu TO it. which Is in use in this part of the United
states as unproducve to the practitioners as it is ruin
to-"
"ritllg 10 tile same person at q subsequent
date, dec. 5, 1917 he says:
"The English farmer must entertain contemplate opn-
ion OF our husbaudry, horrd idea of land when he
10 NC informed that not than eight ten bushels of
wheat is the yield of an acre"
Since these words were written, little has been
done to elevate the character of Virginia farm
ing, and Mount Vernon, itself, losing the eye of
its master, has lapsed into TIP general degen-
eracy While the yield of wheat has increased
in England to thirty bushels per acre, it has
sunk to seven in Virginia. The opinion of the
g English farmer " may be imagined.
In an address of the late Hon. A. Stevenson,
in 1850, to the Agricultural Society of ALDER
marie, in Virginia, he said:
1T hardly be necessary to attempt to imp ess upon
you the depressed and wreched condition of the farming
Interests throughout the State at large, with the exception
of few portions of it, which constitute honorable and
praiseworthy exceptions
Even in Ohio the wheat crop is already less
remunerative than formerly, and fields long cul
tivated are given up to pasturage. In Indiana,
Kentucky and Illinois where SO large an amount
of grain is sold and carried off, instead of being
fed out to stock, they are selling their lands by
the bushel in the shape of wheat and corn and
that for a price utterly ruinous., Commerce,
founded upon such agricultural economy as this
must come to an end, although the folly will
continue to be avenged on posterity, even tot the
third and fourth generation.
In the agricultural survey of Mississippi, re
Gently published, Mr.. Harper, speaking OF the
system pursued in that State, says:
"This agriculture has hitherto been very exhausting
Mssiss rpi is State dates its existence only
from the year 1873 and notwithstanding all its fertility
large part of the land already exhausted; the State is
| full. of old deserted fields"
| A recent address issued by the agriculture
convention in South Carolina, declares:
sour stocks of hogs, horses mules and cattle are dmin
shng in size and decreasing in number and our purses are
being stra ned for their last supply their placesrom
| the Northwestern States"
In the late message of the Governor of Geor-
gia, he eloquently descants upon the " educa-
tional wants - of his State, and among many
other facts, he notices " the exhaustion of the
soil under system of agriculture that glorics
in excl uding the application of scientific princi-
pies. :"
My time will not permit greater accumula-
ton of evidence on this point although / have
cloud of witnesses In reserve, nor is pointing
out the nakedness of the land an agreeable du-
ty. The leading fact, however, of wide
spread decoration of the soil, stands out too
boldly to be denied. The great, irreversible law
of American agriculture appears in the constant
and increasing diminuton of agricultural pro-
ducts, without any advance in prices. 1t fol-
lows, just in proportion, that capital is disap-
pearing, and that labor receives diminishing
reward. Our country is growing debilitated
and we propagate the consumptive disease with
hall the energy of private enterprise and public
patronage.
There is little doubt but that three fourths OF
the arabic land of our whole country is more OF
less subjected to this process of exhaustion. II
has been estimated by DR.. Lee, of Georgia, that
the annual income of the soil of not less than
one hundred millions of acres of land in the
United States is diminishing at the rate of ten
cents an acre. This would amount to 100000.
900, and involve the loss of a capital OF $780,,
666, 500 annually A sum greater than all oul
national and State taxation
Men waste hundreds of acres of land on the
theory that it is inexhaustible, whose entire
wealth might not produce the raw materials
the magnesa, lime, soda, potash, phosphorus
sulphur, carbon, nitrogen, &c.-necessary tc
make single acre possessing primitive fertility
Thus the accumulated store of ages passes away
in a single generation.
And this waste of soil is not the only thing
wasted For want of the knowledge and skill
which the institutions aimed at can alone I'M
part, Colonel Wilder, gentleman of well earn
ed fame, estimates the annual loss Of the single
State Of Massachusetts, in the one product o
her cereal grains, at $2,O00y000. Another
gentleman, in the same State, of great expert
cnce in the line of stock, dairy, &c, reports thu
loss from the same Ignorance and unskllfulnes
in these interests, at SIS 100000 for that Stat
alone The loss of New York, upon her f0u
hundred and forty-seven thousand and fourteen
horses, (and Ohio, by the census of 1850, ha,
more,) through the universal incompetency il
the veterinary art, has been reckoned at not les
than two million dollars. The horse, tina
"wonder of nature, " so universally adored b
man, for the slightest ailment is handed owe
to the butchers Of quackery, whose practice
more fatal than that ascribed even to DIR
Hornbook
Folk maun do something for their bread,
An maun Death"
We are indebted to Europe for our civize
inhabitants, and for nearly all of our domesti
animals, whatever the testimony of the rock
may be as the pre-existenee of the latter
The soil we have acquired by the displacement
Of tho rod