Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-01-11
CHE fara1' p a'i. aud firesiae.
FXHACSTING THE SOIL.

Prof. E. W. Hilgard, late of Mississippi,
but now of California, contributes a paper to
the Atlantic Monthly, in which he assumes
that most prominent among the factors that
have contributed toward the extraordinary de-
velopment and prosperity of agriculture in the
United States is, unquestionably, the great
native fertility of soils, as yet unexhausted in
the newer States and Territories, which are
thus enabled to pour out upon the East and
upon Europe the accumulated soil treasures of
many ages. That these cannot hold that for
ever or even for many years to come, is an
inexhonorabe law of nature and the steady
diminution of production per acre in! the
States east of the Mississippi river, resulting
in their increasing ability to compete in the
growing of cereals with the newer States, has
long given warning that the experience OF the
Old World is being repeated on the new contl-
nent and that the old and ever-recurring qnes-
tion is upon us of maintaining profitable pro-
ductiveness by means of systematic culture
and returns to the soil.
Whether this question shall be allowed to
assume the aspect of the menace that annually
confronts the European agriculturist-"N
manure, no cropS''-or whether an ounce OF
intelligent prevention shall foreStall the heavy
| burdens that will otherwise rest upon the COM
| ing generation and it's industries, is the issue
that must largely be determined by 'enlighten-
ed government action, in the face of the al
ready inveterate bad habits of the vast major
| ity of American farmers, that are, as usual,
promptly adopted by the European Immigrant.
The ravaging of the virgin soils by heavy
cropping, Without change, or even the slight
est attempts at returns, followed by the
turning out'' of the stirred" land, and, too
often, by the washing away of the surface soil
from the hard plough sole formed by shallow
tilhge; not uncommonly resulting in the de-
initive ruin of the land for agricultural pur-
poses, is repeated more or less in every newly
settled region. Deserted hemesteads, and
melancholy old fields SCARED with gullies, mar
the face of the land in the rear Of the pioneer
farmer and impose upon his steadier success
sor heavy tax in the way of reclamation, on
soils that, if nationally cultivated, would not
have felt the need of manures for scores of
years. For want of the most rudimentary
knowledge of agricultural facts and principles,
the planters of the South have for three-quar-
ters of century wasted nine crops of cotton
for every one made, by failing to utilize the
chief products of their felds-cotton seed
for returns to the soil which needs bat little
more to maintain it's full productiveness for
ever. Such crying evil as this would hardly
have been allowed to exist so long in any
country less averse to the least semblance of
paternal government without something more
than the faint warnings and remonstrance ut
tered from time to time in the periodical press
or in Government documents The great per-
fection attained by agricultural implements
| for large scale culture, under the hands OF
American inventive skill, serves but to add to
the rapidity with which the process of soil de-
yastation is carried forward into new fields.