The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1878-01-17

The leading article in the December
number Of the American Farmer, from
the pen of H. II. McGinnis, discusScs
ABLY the question, "IiOw does plant food
escape from the cultivated sOilY" The
writer remarks: CAS- TO how the grea,
body goes, it could hardly be a subject
of doubt with any farmer who has ever
had the fortune or MISFORTUNE to be
sought Oh II plowed field during a heavy
rainfall, where he must have seen 1t
plant food runninl Off in channels,
every furrow forming a rivulcL more
rapidly than 100 men could carry ton"
The above strikes boldly at Il fact to
which we have often called public atten-
ton, and especially in an essay on the
"Philosophy Of tiIlage," published some
thirty years pgo in the Transactions OF
the New York State Agricultural socic'
ty. TiIlagc places a soil in the best pos.
sible C nd ton TO b. thoroughly washed
and secured by many rains which send
It's iertilizing elements into brooks,
creeks. rivers and the ocean. Mr.. Nee.
avs: "In general plant food applied to
.ojI is lost neither bysinking nor evap".
ration, nor by both together" lie thinks
that less than one-tenth Of the loss re-
mlt4 from the removal of crops.
This is probably an underestimate.
All know that meadows and pastures are
impoverished by moving and grain"
where there is no blowing, while annual
crops of grass are taken off the land,
Depletion and ultimate barrenness follow
the removal of rich agricultural
plants without tilIage. But let us cx-
anime the exhaustion Of soils II little
farther. Our author makes this quite
unusual statement: 81 have never seen
the subject OF exhaustion uscfllly, in
t%elIigently, or deccntly treated in any
book. My heart sorrOws at the prospect
Of dying without the sight" He adds;
of no such book exists, the shame is
universal-a million times more than
can ever feel. | believe the question of
exhaustion to be OF greater moment,
especially to farmers, than any other.
Expectation of crops, the principal, il
not the only, reasons assigned and elabo-
rated by writers-in my opinion does
not take five pounds in lGO pounds OF
what the soil loses"
River bottoms, deltas, gulfs, and the
sea receive the dissolved and solid parts
of farms denuded, depleted or rendered
sterile by the labor of man according to
this student of agriculture.
That the plow desolatcs the soil by the
million acres, we hava no doubt; but how
to stop it under our low type OF civilizt.
ton and intelligence is the grand ques.
ton. All men can no more be wise,
prudent or thoughtful than they can be
angels. The element do most to create
good soils for nan and beast, and do most
also to destroy them. Old continents
wear out by the action of frost and the
friction of rain and dissplving snow.
which carry them ~ mud into the
ocean, whether man tills the ground or
not. Tillage, however, hasteps the re.
moval Of fertilizing stoms.
Let these precious atoms be AZ well
known to CAPITALISTS M iron, coal and
gold, and capital in a virgin soil will
be better husbanded than it now is, not.
perhaps, for the benefit of the husband
man, but to increase the income of the
bondholders and creditor class generally.
The misers of the cities do not see the
wealth buried in their sewers, else they
would coin it into geld paying national
bonds Concentrated manure paws a
better interest than any other property
in the present age. 1t is the power OF
production brought to focus.