The weekly standard., 1869-10-06

WHY THE LAND Is RUNNING OUT.-
With all the pride which Americans feel in
witnessing the Improvements of this coun-
try in most respects, it is source OF morti-
tication that in almost every portion of our
fair land the soil is yearly growing less pro-
ductive. We are talking of "worn-out
lands " in regions where men are now living
who witnessed their first settlement, and
where the perishable structures of the pion-
GERS still remain. We are sending wheat to
towns that were, in our colonial days. the
granaries both of our own and foreign ma
tions; and unless the aristocratic Virginian
Is content to smoke tobacco interior to that
IN which his ancestor INDUCED, 1t Is certain
that he must receive his supply of the cher
ished narcotic from beyond the borders of
the Old Dominion. -- ....,
The cause of the diminution of the mate
rial wealth of the country lies in the fact
that we are annually sending away from the
land, with each successive harvest, those
things on which the soil is dependent for its
fertility. We all know that wheat is an ex-
haustive crop; that it robs the soil of its
rich phosphates and several other salts that
are essential to the growth of the plant,
which, more than any other, supplies the
food for men. Let us see what becomes of
these essential elements of wheat growth:
they are very largely found in the covering
of the berry. This, we all know, in the
great majority of cases, is separated from
the whittier portions of the flour at mills sit
uated at distance from where the grain is
produced. This bran or shorts is fed to
cattle in large towns, and though some will
find its way into village gardens, by far the
larger portion is buried in pits, used in the
place of soil for filling up places that are re-
quireo to be raised, or taken out into bodies
of water by means of boats or through
sewers
Of the bran and shorts of wheat, and the
entire portions of other grains that are fed
to the stock on the farm, some, of course, is
returned to the land, and shows its good
effects in the crops that are produced from
it. But the animals that are raised from
them, as well as the dairy products derived
from the milk so produced, are sent to dis
tant markets. Even the bones of the ami
mails that die from disease or accident, or
are slaughtered for beef, are now eagerly
collected, and find their way, for the most
part to foreign shores. To-day the English
wheat fields and French vineyards are re-
,joicing in fertility derived from bones of an
imals raised in the valley of the Mississippi
river.
Every year thousands of acres of land are
put in flax, crop that diminishes the pro-
ductiveness of the soil for several successive
seasons. The oil is expressed from the seed
to be used in painting houses but nearly all
the oil cake is sent across the sea- The pro-
prietor of the largest linseed oil works in
the West informed US recently that never
over two per cent of their oil cake found
market in this country The remainder goes
to England. The English farmer buys this
product of the flax mill, not altogether or
principally because it is the cheapest food
for dairy and beef stock, but because of the
excellent character of the manure that is
derived from it.-Rome Journal