Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1873-06-27
AGRICULTURAL
For the Sentinel.
Improvement Of Land.
NO. VII.


The first object Of the practical farmer is to
reap from his land the largest possible return
of the most valuable crops without permanent
ly injuring or exhausting the soil. With this
view he adopts one or other of the methods
already adverted to in previous communica-
tons, by which either the physical condition
or the chemical composition of the soil is al
tered for the better.
In certain districts the soil and subsoil con.
tain within themselves an almost unfailng sup
ply ofinorganic mineral substances, so that the
waste of them is long in being felt in others,
again, the land contains less, and therefore
becomes sooner exhausted. This latter class
of soil requires a more careful and usually
more expensive mode of cultivation than the
first, but both will become at length unpro-
ductive, if that which is yearly taken from the
soil is not in some form or other restored to it,
One thing is of essential Importance to be
remembered by the practical farmer, that the
deterioration Of land is often an exceedingIy.
slow process. In the hands of successive gen
erations field may so imperceptibly become
less valuable that century even may elapse
before the change proves such as to make a
sensible diminution in its value. Such slow
changes, however, have been seldom recorded;
and hence the practical man is occasionally led
to despise the clearest theoretical principles,
because he has not happened to see them veri-
fed in his own limited experience, and to neg
lect therefore, the suggestions and the wise
precautions which these principles lay before
him. The agricultural history ofknown tracts
of land of different qualities showing how they
had been cropped and TILED, and the average
produce ia grain, hay and stock, every year,
during an entire century, would afford inval-
uable materials both to theoretical and 10
practical agriculture.
We may meet with this sure though slow
decay in the agricultural history of every
country. In none, perhaps, are they more
striking than in our own State, Virginia and
North Carolina, once rich and fertile, by a
continued system of forced and exhausting cul-
ture, have become unproductive in many pla-
ccs, and vast tracts have been abandoned TO
apparently hopeless sterility Such lands, it
is possible to reclaim, but at what an expense
OF time, labor, manure, and skillful manage
ment. 1t is to be hoped that the newer States
will not thus sacrifice their future power and
prospects to procure temporary wealth; that
the line lands of Ohio, Kentucky, and the
prairie States, which now yield Indian corn
and wheat, crop after crop, without interms-
sion, and without manure, will not be so crop
ped till their strength and substance is gone.
but that better conducted and more skillful
husbandry will continue, acilhom diminishing
The present crops, TO secure permanent fertili.
ty 10 that naturally rich and productive coun-
try.
An important fact both to agriculture and
geology should not be overlooked, viz: the
natural order or mode of arrangement in which
the stratifed rocks are observed 10 occur in
the crust of the globe. For instance, we have
a limestone, sandstone, and hard CLAY rocl,
lying over each other ia close connection: then
IN Whatever part of the country, nay, in what
ever part of the world, these same rocks are
met with, they will always be found in the
same position. This is important to the agri-
eultuiist, because ii enables him TO nredict
whether certain kinds Of rocks which NAV be
used with advantage in improving his soil are
likely to be met with within reasonable, dis
lance, or at an accessible depth. If the farmer
requires clay, or mari, or sand, to ameliorate
his SOIL this knowledge of the constant rela-
i've position of beds, enables him to say where
these materials are TO be got, or where thew
are to be looked for, and whether the adyan-
tage TO be derived is likely to repay the cost
OF procuring them.
1t is observable that when the soil on ,be
surface of each Of series of rocks is uniformly
bad, it is almost uniformly Of better oualtv at
the point 'ehere the t,eo rocks meet. Thus. one
may be dry, sandy and barren, another. red.
unprodaetive clay and still another, more
or less untruitful limestone soil yet, at either
extremity, where the soil is made up of an ad
mixture of the decayed portions Of the two
adjacent rocks, the land may be of AVERAGE
fertility; the sand may adapt the adjacent CLAW
to the growth of wheat. Thus, to the tenant,
IN looking out for farm, or to the eapitalist
IN seeking or eligible investment, knowledge
OF the natural relations of geology to agricul-
ture viii often prove of the reatestassistance,
But how little is such really useful knowledge
dlfused among either class of men-how little
have either tenants or proprietors been hith-
erto guided BY it in their choice of the locali-
ties in which they desire to live.
=, GLAUCUS.