Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Iowa) 1861-1864, 1863-04-16
9gritultaraI.
STOCK GROWING IN AMERICA.
DY FRANCIS NJ. RoTCH.

are apt to regard chiefly its 5read.pro-
ducing capacity, and to overlook its
almost equally important and inti-
mately connected ability to furnish
meat. Impressed by our immense
crops of grain, and with the seeming
ly exhaustless powers of the virgin
soil, they look but at the numerical
result in bushels of single harvest,
and do not take into consideration the
number of acres required to grow the
crop, and the consequent small yield
per acre. 1t is the great amount of
land under cultivation, the case with
which it is worked, and the sparse
population which affords such large
crops, and enables so great surplus
to be exported. But this condition of
things cannot last. The most fertile
soil must in time become exhausted
by constant cropping, and both the
yield and the quality Of the products
.deteriorate. In proof of this we cite
the State of Virginia, one of the most
fertile of the earlier settled States.
When the land was first cultivated
abundant harvests Of corn, wheat,
and tobacco rewarded the most care
less husbandry, and no donbt the first
settlers regarded her Virginia soil as
inexhaustiblc. But the inevitable
process of deterioration was silently
going on, and at the present time
thousands of acres of what was once
the best of land in the State have
been abandoned altogether, or, if
worked in the old method, furnish
meagre return for tue labor expended
upon them Even in our rich prairie
States the same process is going on,
for the same causes are at work. An
intelligent wheat. grower in Wisconsin
writes, "that lands that have been
cultivated only twelve years in that
ncwly-settlcd State now yield but
half the number of bushels per acre
which was obtained in the beginning"
Extensive corn-growers in Indiana say
that river bottoms that once pro-
duced sixty to eighty bushels of corn
per acre now yield only from thirty to
forty" Instances like these might
be multiplied almost without end.
Wherever the light Of truthful and
thorough statistics can be brought
to bear lon land under cultivation,
there the diminution of its virgin fer
tility is demonstrated. The injury
yearly to the country from this cause
it would be difficult to compute. DR.
Lee, in an admirable article on the
" Progress of Agriculture in the Uni
ted States" communicated to the de-
partment in 1851. says: "Of the one
hundred and twenty-five millions of
acres now under cultivation in the
United States, four-iifths, or one hum
dred millions, are damaged to the ex-
tent Of three dollars an acre per an
mum |" Such are the results of the
American method of cultivation, a
method growing out Of our having
+" a continent to cultivate and exhaust
of its virgin fertility ;"of our great ia
cilities for internal communication of
our cheap land and dear labor. But
we should remember that in time
even continent may become impover-
ished. We are trenching upon the
best grain-growing districts with
alarming rapidity. Annually the tide
of emigration pours its foods over
our unoccupied territory, till before
long the wave Of civilization from the
east will meet that from the west at
the base of the Rocky Mountains, leav-
ing no more land to be subjugated by
the plough, no more valleys and bill.
tops for fresh flocks and herds. Be-
fore this time arrives, then, it is the
duty of those who look to the future
OF this country, who regard its great
es interests and its continued pros
perity, and who would have it retain
its proud position as the "granary Of
the world" to consider the great
problem how best to save from injury
and destruction the natural resources
of the soil.
"To dig about and dung it," when
we wish increased growth and vigor
in tree or plant, is a maxim of Holy
Writ, and gives us the clue to our
grand problem of how to replenish the
soil. Manure, as afforded by animals,
is the great source Of fertility and
renovation, and its production depend
ing upon the rearing, keeping, and
seeding live stock, shows us the init
mate connection existing between the
growing of bread and meat. BY the
help of the animal economy We are
enabled to return to the soil in the
state of plant food large portion of
those constituents taken from it by
the process of vegetation. The close
dependence Of the animal and vegcta-
bic Kingdoms upon each other, and
the difficulty of successfully per-
fecting the one without the other, has
been recognized by all enlightened
agriculturists as one Of the first princi-
plies of cultivation, and the founda-
ton ofall good farming.
In this country we have no indi-
genous distinct breeds Of either cattle
or sheep. When this continent was
discovered the only animal Of the
bovine race was the bison, or, as it is
commonly called, the buffalo, now
confined to the regions west of the
Mississippi river, but once a denizen
Of the whole country, to the very
shores of the Atlantic, and the musk
OK, an animal not found within the
borders of the United States, but an
inhabitant Of the northwestern portion
of the continent. What are called ma
tives arc a heterogeneous mixture of
various breeds introduced at various
times aud for different purposes, and
left to cross and mingle as chance or
convenience dictated. In the earlier
settlement of the country cattle and
sheep were procured at different times
from the continent of Europe, from
England, aud tue Spanish West Indies,