Year: 1862

We have frequently contended- and
the osIdi4ia1aal =nxpsrinnco sphteh c~ery
year brings with it adds further confirm.
alton to the fact-that the rapid exhaus-
ton of even our very best soils is not due
so much 10 constant groupings as to the
heed crops which play so prominent a
part in our system of agriculture. 1t is
lrue that corn and tobacco draw largely
upon our, soils, and especially upon the
phosphates and The potash which they
contain. 1t is true, also, "that shallow
and careless cultivation has done much to
assist in exhausting lands which were re-
garded at one time as of almost mex
haustible fertility, and statistics likewise
show that whilst the area Of cultivation
has been extended year after year, the
average product per acre has diminished.


One Of the primary reasons why these
crops have proved so deleterious TO The
soil, is the fact that the system of cultiva-
tion required to bring them to perfection,
keeps the intervals between the growing
plants utterly bare during the hottest
months of the year. The action of the
sun upon these exposed surfaces, together
with the constant stirring of the soil for
the purpose of keeping it loose and light
and friable, whilst it promotes the solu-
bility of its plant-food, yet al the same
time exposes the organic and inorganic
substances which constitute IN their seve-
raj proportions the elements Of fertility
10 great loss, both by evaporation and by
washing rains, AS an illustration of this
process of exhaustion by the simple ex-
posure of bare soil to the action of the
sun and the rain in summer time, we may
cite the following facts. A piece of land
kept constantly plowed, without any crop
whatever being grown upon it, if not suf-
fered to grow up in weeds, will gradually
lapse from a state of fertility into one of
comparative barrenness. It has been
losing year after year, by evaporation
and yleaching rains, the greater portion
of lis pIant-foOd, its vegetable and mine
raj wealth, if we may be permitted to SO
term it. As signal proof of this we
have in our mind eye a peach orchard
which twenty years ago was planted upon
as fine piece of soil as is TO be found
anywhere within ten miles of Baltimore.
1t was light, loose chocolate soil, and
the quality when the orchard was plant
ed, was that of the best tobacco land
That orchard was plowed regularly every
season TO promote the growth of the peach
trees and to facilitate the ripening of the
fruit. 1t is the usual custom with the
best peach. growers. In twelve years, or
bv the lime the peach trees began TO show
signs Of decay, those fifty acres bore
eyerv evidence of a soil that had been
utterly exhausted. Yet with the excep-
ton Of the peach trees themselves, not a
single crop of any kind had been taken
from the land. Now, this rapid exhaus-
lion could not be charged to the demands
made upon the soil BY the peach trees
alone, but to the fact that the soil was kept
perfectly bare throughout the summer


Again-take the converse of the proPo-
sition. So long as lands are kept shaded
thev continue 10 increase in fertility. Does
any one doubt thisg Let bim tarn out
an old field. and after while a new
growth of wood and brush will spring up,
except when the land is worn into gulIies,
and with the growth Of this wood, the
droppines of the leaves and the shade of
the folia ge. a portion Of the lost fertility
of the land viii be restored. Yet the
trees have been drawing nutriment from