New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-12-27

We send ten thousand miles for Guano and
suffer the equally valuable eroretions of our cities TO
run to waste in rivers and bays poisoning or driving
away the fish and filing the air with stencil and
pestilence. No farmer yet intelhgenty tried TO
enrich his land and was defeated by lack of mate
rial He may not be able to do all he would like to
at first but persistent effort cannot be bafiied
II. Shallow culture is the most crying defect OF
our average farming. Poverty may sometimes
il but the is stretched quite too tar
If farmer has but poor span of horses a light
yoke Of thin steers he cannot plow land as 1t should
be powed but let him double teams with
his neighbor, and pillow alternate days on
either farm; OF, if this may not be- let
him buy or borrow sub-soil pillow and go once
around with his surface plow then hitch on to
the sub-soil and run another furrow in the bottom
of the former There are a few intervales Of rich.
mellow soil deposited by the foundations OF count
less ages where shallow culture will answer,
because the roots Of plants run freely through
fertile earth never yet disturbed by the plow put
these marked and meager exceptions do not lnvall-
date the trnth that uine-tenths of tillage is
neither so deep nor 40 thorough as 1t should be- AS
rule, the feedingroots of plants DO not run below
the bottom of the burrows though in some instances
they do and he who fancies that five or sx lnehes
of soil will under our fervid SUNS with our Sunuers
often Tainless for weeks, produce as bOunteous
and as sure crop as twelve to eighteen
inches is mperviOus TO fact OF reason He might az
sensibly maintain that you could draw as long and
as heavily against deposit in bank OF $500 as
against one Of 1880.
IL. Finally, and as the sum OF my convictions, we
need more thought more study, more intellect, IN
fused into Agriculture with less blind devotion
10 a routine which if ever judicous, has long since
Cd ha no w a hight
ing single-handed and all but empty handed with
dense forest of giant trees which he can do no better
than to cut down and burn, found Indispensable
among his stumps and roots, is not adapted to tho
altered circumstances of his grandchildren If our
most energetic farmers would abstract ten hours
each per weel from their incessant drudgery, and
devote them to reading and reflection with regard
to their noble c.lling they wonld live longer, live
to better purpose, and bequeath better example,
with more property, TO their children.
Ny self-imposed task is done. undertook to tell
What Know of Farming through one brief essay for
each week in 1870; and, in the face of mutifarious
and pressing duties and in despite OF severe,
protracted illness the work has been prosecuted to
completion. Had not kept ahead Of it while in
health, there were weeks when ] must have left 1t
unaccomplshed as / was too i'll to write or even
stand.
; / close with the avowal Of my joyful trust that
these essays slight and imperfect m they
are, will incite thousands of young farmers
to feel loftier pride in their calling
and take liveler interest in its mprov ement, and
that many will be induced by il 10 read ADLER and
better works on Agriculture and the sciences which
minister to its efficiency and impel its progress to-
ward perfection which few yet have even family
foreseen.