The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-03-10
THE aUANo QUESTION TIMELY DISCOVERY

of nutritious character is of the great studies
Of civilization Whenever there is deficiency of
this we perceive the decline ofpopulation and pro-
clvity to barbarsm Some of the most fertile coun-
tries of antiquity have become comparative deserts,
since the exhaustion of their soils, unreplenshed by
the constituents from which crops produced;
and in own day great has been the alarm in
some countries at similar prospect for themselves
that political economists have seriously recommend
ed the restriction of population to meet the oontn
gency of probable want of food, In Great Britain
only one-third of its inhabitants engaged in ag-
rcultural pursuits the remainder being chiefly arti-
Fans of all professions. They are often at the famine
point and the suffering is In France,
on the contrary two.thirds of the population are
gagged in agricultural pursuits and this is the
why that country has such wonderfully recupera-
tive power, Notwithstanding its bloody and long.
continued wars and destructive revolutions and
yet from even these often hear the cry for bread
In our own boundess domains, while virgin
soils yield munfcently at first, find gradual
falling off in the grain crops and other agricultural
products after few years Of culture, and conse-
quently we too, have been at times compelled to
import wheat for our immediate wants.
The Romans were very digent cutivators, and
their farm management was as perfect as possible
considering how deficient they in the know
ledge of the natural sciences. The following we'll
known apologize illustrates this characteristic. A
vine-dresser had two daughters and vineyard ;
when his eldest daughter was married, he gave her
a third of it for her portion, notwithstanding which
he had the same quantity of fruit for himself for
merly. When his second daughter married he
gave her half Of what remained and still the product
was undimnished. The moral was, that he gave la
Dor enough to what remained to keep up the pro-
ducts of his vines If our own country would but
adopt similar method, they would be able to do
better by their children than they usually do.
But without following up the agricultural sys-
tens of the ancients, of which they have left us
very full and interesting accounts, we have enough
to consider when look at those of our times.
And though science has thrown flood of light over
the mysterious reproductive methods of Nature,
though we have learned the structure and functions
of plants, have analysed their constituents, have
Taught them how to yield most abundanty, and still
more, have ascertained the character variety, in
gradients, and quality of soils, and the effects of
water light air. and sunshine upon them and their
products yet, the great desideratum remains. The
world s one great want is, the best and cheapest
fertilizers. The population of the two hemspheres
is not fully fed and here in the United States will
have at the end of this century one hundred mil
Hons of mouths to be filed three times day. Marls,
gvpsum. mixtures of earth poudrette, artificial
stimuants for the parched and wornout Soils all
Tba tbar
fngs of the barn-yards, irrigation, deep ploughing,
draining, turning the ciods TO be meowed by
the air and its moisture, are all proposed by our
scientific investigators as means to keep up pro-
fuction, and they all have their value, and an nes
vaabe value But all these, comparatively speaking,
are without power to replace in the ground those
elements OF vitality which spring up into the leaf
and the stalk, aud the grain and the fruit and the
flower, carried away, consumed and lost forever from
where Nature had infused them,
Our agricultural products in the old States, and
even in the new, most unquestionably falling OF
in Quantity In the Middle States we perceive 1T so
we do in New England; in Maryland, Delaware,
and Virginia Weeven see it in Illinois, Indiana, and
Ohio. This fact is in accordance with well-known
scientific principles. The mineral constituents re-
oye, from an acre of land in ton Of rye grass and
ba ton ofred clover amount to hundred and nine
pounds consisting of potassa soda, lime, magnesia,
oxide of iron phosphoric acid sulphuric acid chic
rine and silica A rotation of crops, so much de-
pended on and so very important and useful as we
admit it TO be- after a time does no better in this par
ticuar On the same quantity of land, whare grain
and its straw, bulbs tops, and hay removed fro
AZ by cultivation, twelve hundred and eighty-two
pounds of these soluble minerals carried of and
Host forever 1t is easy to perceive that actual ster
Tlty must in this case ultimately be the consequence
and who of our readers does not know and has not
heard of hundreds of old, vermont farms in this very
condition These facts have been thoroughly made
known by the experiments of the great liebig, Davy
and other agricultural chemists and analysers, and
they are known to those of own intelligent cult
vators who have examined into the subject, though
To the great Humboldt and possingall we are in
aebted for our first knowledge of the utility of GUANo
Reduced 10 practical and economical form, we
find them exempli6ed in table carefully compiled
by one of our most distinguished agricuturists, vho
in public address not two years since, electrified
his Audience by the following statement of facts,
In less thas FIVE years preceding 1857, though some
hundreds Of thousands of Of new land had been