Quasqueton guardian. (Quasqueton, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1856-1858, 1858-05-20

that of 1910 by over eighteen million
pounds. No crop has proven more de-
structive to the fertility Of the soil than
the tobacco crop, and this staple con-,
modify, unless cheap and effective
remedy can be found, must be either
banished, or it will Danish the cultivat-
ors. In this state, where tobacco, corn
and wheat have been continued for cen
tury, many districts are no longer cult
vated. Liebig says, that from every acre
of this land, there were removed in the
space of one hundred years, twelve hun
dred pounds of alkalics in leaves, grain
and straw. While the yield of wheat has
increased in England to thirty bushels
per acre, it has sunk to seven in Virginia.
Even in Ohio, the wheat crop is al
ready less remunerative than formerly,
and fields long cultivated 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 price ut
terly ruinous. Commerce, founded up
on such agricultural economy as this,
must come to an end, although the folly
will continue to be avenged on posterity
even TO the third and fourth generation.
The leading fact of widespread de-
tcrioration of the soil stands out too boldly
to be denied. The great irreversible law
of American agriculture appears in the
constant and increasing dimunition of
agricultural products, without any ad-
vance in prices. 1t follows, just in pro-
portion, that capital is disappearing, and
that labor receives diminishing reward.
Our country is growing debilitated, and
We propagate the consumptive disease
with all the energy Of private enterprise
and public patronage.
Many foreign states support popula-
ton vastly larger per square mile than
we maintain, and hold their annual in
crease !; but by the system Of husbandry
generally pursued here, the land is held
until it is robbed of its virtue, skinned
of It's cream, and then the owner, selling
his wasted field to some skinfint neigh
Dor, lies to fresh fields with the foul in
tent to repeat the same spoilation and
this annual exodus which prevails over
all the older states, and even begins upon
the first settlements of the new states be-
fore their remoter borders have lost sight
of the savage, painfully indicates that
we have reached the maximum of popu-
lation our land will support in the pre-
sent state of our agricultural economy
Our skill must be fnrther developed, or
here is our limit.
The agriculturists have been, within a
few years, aroused to their own wants.
The eager crowds which throng the an.
nual fairs of our agricultural societies,
proclaim the universal hunger there is
for a profounder information touching
that which comes home to their business
and bosoms. They know there are mys,
teries clearly concerning them, and the y
demand of learning and science solu-
ton. Let us have such colleges as may
rightfully claim the authority of teachers
to announce facts and fixed laws, and to
scatter broadcast that knowledge which
will prove useful in building up a grea,
nation. The farmer aud the mechanic
require special schools and appropriate
literature quite as much as any of the
so-called learned professions. We need
a careful, exact and systematized regis
tration of experiments, such as can be
made by thoroughly scientific institu-
tons, and such as will not be made else
where
Agricultural schools and colleges, in
many portions of Europe, are a marked
feature Of the age. In our own country
the general want of such places of in
struction has been SO manifest that states,
societies, and individuals, have attempted
to supply it, though necessarily in a
stinted measure. The plentiful lack"
of funds has retarded their maturity and
usefulness but there are some examples,
like that Of Michigan, liberally supported
by the state, in the full tide of successful
experiment. If this bill shall pass, in
stitutions of the character required by the
people will spring into lie, and not Ian
guish from poverty and neglect.
in the highest civilized parts of Europe
we End the governments alive TO the
wants of agriculture. They have estab-
lished ministers of instruction. model
farms, experimental farms, botanical gar