Resolved, That the thanks of the Agricultural
Society of Albemarle are due to the president for the enlightened
and important address, this day delivered; that the secretary
be, and he is hereby authorized and required to request a copy
for publication; that he cause the said address to be published
in the Enquirer; as also 250 copies, to be printed in the pamphlet
form, one of which he shall transmit to each member of the society.
Extract from the minutes,
P. MINOR, Secretary.
Montpellier, May, 1818.
DEAR SIR, I have received your letter of the
12th inst., communicating the request of the Agricultural Society
of Albemarle, for a copy of the remarks addressed to it, at its
last meeting. I cannot decline a compliance with the request,
though I have much reason to apprehend, that what the society
received with so partial an ear will not bear the deliberate perusal,
for which an opportunity will be afforded.
With sincere esteem, I remain your friend and
servant,
JAMES MADISON.
PETER MINOR, Esq.,
Secretary of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle.
ADDRESS.
It having pleased the society to name me for
their presiding member, I feel it a duty, on my first appearing
among you, to repeat my acknowledgments for that honorary distinction;
with the assurances of my sincere desire to promote the success
of an establishment which has in view so valuable an object as
that of improving the agriculture of our country.
The faculty of cultivating the earth, and of
rearing animals, by which food is increased beyond the spontaneous
supplies of nature, belongs to man alone. No other terrestrial
being has received a higher gift than an instinct, like that of
the beaver or the ant, which merely hoards for future use the
food spontaneously furnished by nature.
As this peculiar faculty gives to man a pre-eminence
over irrational animals, so it is the use made of it by some,
and the neglect of it by other communities, that distinguish them
from each other, in the most important features of the human character.
The contrast between the enlightened and refined
nations on some parts of the earth, and the rude and wretched
tribes on others, has its foundation in this distinction. Civilization
is never seen without agriculture; nor has agriculture ever prevailed
where the civilized arts did not make their appearance.
But closely as agriculture and civilization are
allied, they do not keep pace with each other. There is probably
a much higher state of agriculture in China and Japan than in
many other countries far more advanced in the improvements of
civilized life. It is surely no small reproach to the latter,
that with so great a superiority in science, and in the fuller
possession of the auxiliary arts, they should suffer themselves
to be outstripped in the very art by which both are essentially
distinguished from the brute creation.
It must not be inferred, however, from the capacities
and the motives of man, for an artificial increase of the productions
of the earth, that the transition from the hunter, or even the
herdsman's state, to the agricultural, is a matter of course.
The first steps in this transition are attended with difficulty;
and what is more, with disinclination.
Without a knowledge of the metals, and the implements
made of them, the process of opening and stirring the soil is
not an easy operation; though one perhaps not requiring more effort
and contrivance, than produced the instruments used by savages
in war and in the chase.
And that there is a disinclination in human nature
to exchange the savage for the civilized life, cannot be questioned.
We need not look for proofs beyond our own neighborhood The Indian
tribes have ever shewn an aversion to the change. Neither the
persuasive examples of plenty and comfort derived from the culture
of the earth by their white brethren, nor the lessons and specimens
of tillage placed in the midst of them, and seconded by actual
sufferings from a deficient and precarious subsistence, have converted
them from their strong propensities and habitual pursuits. In
the same spirit, they always betray an anxious disposition to
return to their pristine life, after being weaned from it by time,
and apparently moulded by intellectual and moral instruction,
into the habits and tastes of an agricultural people. A still
more conclusive evidence of the bias of human nature is seen in
the familiar fact, that our own people, nursed and reared in these
habits and tastes, easily slide into those of the savage, and
are rarely reclaimed to civilized society with their own consent.
Had the Europeans, on their arrival, found this
continent destitute of human inhabitants, whose dangerous neighborhood
kept them in a compact and agricultural state, and had their communication
with the countries they left been discontinued, they might have
spread themselves into the forests where game and fruits would
have abounded; and gradually forgetting the arts, no longer necessary
to their immediate wants, leave degenerated into savage tribes.
An admired historian,* in his inquiry into the
origin of the American savages, represents any such degeneracy
as impossible. He lays it down as a certain principle that the
necessary arts of life, when once introduced among a people, can
never be lost; that the dominion over inferior animals once enjoyed,
will never be abandoned; and that America, consequently, must
have been peopled from a country as uncivilized as itself. Yet
he derives the American savages, generally, from the Tartars,
whose example must have taught them the use of certain animals,
for which a substitute might have been found in the bison or buffalo
at least, (the same animal with the cow,) if not in the elk, the
moose, or the Caraboo; and he regards the Esquimaux, a tribe distinguished,
in several respects, for their rude condition, as descendants
from the Greenlanders, (of the same modes of life with themselves,)
who were a colony from Norway, planted in the ninth century; an
epoch prior to which the Norwegians had made such progress in
the arts, as to be capable of formidable maritime expeditions.
The Greenland colony, therefore, must have undergone a degeneracy
from the condition of its parent country: Without supposing the
possibility of a transition from a better state of human society
to a savage state, how would the learned historian have accounted
for the introduction of the savage state at all?
The bent of human nature may be traced on the
chart of our country. The manufacturer readily exchanges the loom
for the plough, in opposition often to his own interest, as well
as to that of his country. The cultivator, in situations presenting
an option, to the labors of the field, the more easy employment
of rearing a herd. And as the game of the forest is approached,
the hunting life displays the force of its attractions. Where
do we behold a march to the opposite direction? the hunter, becoming
the herdsman; the latter a follower of the plough; and the last
repairing to the manufactory or workshop.
Such, indeed, is the fascination of that personal
independence which belongs to the uncivilized state, and such
the disrelish and contempt of the monotonous labor of tillage,
compared with the exciting occupations of the chase, or with the
indolence enjoyed by those who subsist chiefly on the mere bounties
of nature, or on their migratory flocks, that a voluntary relinquishment
of these latter modes of life is little to be expected. We certainly
perceive nothing in the character of our savage neighbors, from
which it could be inferred that even the germs of agriculture,
observed in their spots of maize, and a few other cultivated plants,
would ever be developed into the extent implied by an agricultural
life. To that little resource, combined with the game furnished
by the forest and by the lake or the stream, their population
and habits are adjusted. There may be said, in fact, to be a plenum
of the former; because it is commensurate with their food, and
this cannot be increased without a change of habits, which being
founded in natural propensities, do not change of themselves.
The first introduction of agriculture among a
savage people appears, accordingly, never to have taken place
without some extraordinary interposition. Where it has not been
obtruded by colonies transplanted from agricultural countries,
as from Phoenicia and Egypt into Greece, and from Greece herself
among her savage neighbors, the revolution has proceeded from
some individual, whose singular endowments, and. supernatural
pretensions, had given him an ascendency for the purpose. All
these great reformers, in ancient times, were regarded as more
than men, and ultimately worshipped as gods. A very remarkable
example, of modern date, is found in the revolution from the savage
to the agricultural state, said to have been brought about by
Manco Capac among the Peruvians, to whom he represented himself
as the offspring of the sun.
Agriculture, once effectually commenced, may
proceed of itself, under impulses of its own creation. The mouths
fed by it increasing, and the supplies of nature decreasing, necessity
becomes a spur to industry; which finds another spur in the advantages
incident to the acquisition of property, in the civilized state.
And thus a progressive agriculture, and a progressive population
ensue.
But although no determinate limit presents itself.
to the increase of food, and to a population commensurate with
it, other than the limited productiveness of the earth itself,
we can scarcely be warranted in supposing that all the productive
powers of its surface can be made subservient to the use of man,
in exclusion of all the plants and animals not entering into his
stock of subsistence; that all the elements and combinations of
elements in the earth, the atmosphere, and the water, which now
support such various and such numerous descriptions of created
beings, animate and inanimate, could be withdrawn from that general
destination, and appropriated to the exclusive support and increase
of the human part of the creation; so that the whole habitable
earth should be as full of people as the spots most crowded now
are or might be made, and as destitute as those spots of the plants
and animals not used by man.
The supposition cannot well be reconciled with
that symmetry in the face of nature, which derives new beauty
from every insight that can be gained into it. It is forbidden
also by the principles and laws which operate in various departments
of her economy, falling within the scope of common observation,
as well as within that of philosophic researches.
The earth contains not less than thirty or forty
thousand kinds of plants; not less than six or seven hundred of
birds; nor less than three or four hundred of quadrupeds; to say
nothing of the thousand species of fishes. Of reptiles and insects,
there are more than can be numbered. To all these must be added,
the swarms and varieties of animalcules and minute vegetables
not visible to the natural eye, but whose existence is probably
connected with that of visible animals and plants.
On comparing this vast profusion and multiplicity
of beings with the few grains and grasses, the few herbs and roots,
and the few fowls and quadrupeds, which make up the short list
adapted to the wants of man, it is difficult to believe that it
lies with him so to remodel the work of nature as it would be
remodelled, by a destruction not only of individuals, but of entire
species; and not only of a few species, but of every species,
with the very few exceptions which he might spare for his own
accommodation.
Such a multiplication of the human race, at the
expense of the rest of the organized creation, implies that the
food of all plants is composed of elements equally and indiscriminately
nourishing all, and which, consequently, may be wholly appropriated
to the one or few plants best fitted for human use.
Whether the food or constituent matter of vegetables
be furnished from the earth, the air, or water; and whether directly,
or by either, through the medium of the others, no sufficient
ground appears for the inference that the food for all is the
same.
Different plants require different soils; some
flourishing in sandy, some in clayey, some in moist, some in.
dry soils; some in warm, some in cold situations. Many grow only
in water, and a few subsist in the atmosphere. The forms, the
textures, and the qualities of plants, are still more diversified.
That things so various and dissimilar in their organization, their
constitutions, and their characters, should be wholly nourished
by, and consist of precisely the same elements, requires more
proof than has yet been offered.
A case which bas been relied on to prove that
different foods are not necessary for different plants, is that
of grafting or innoculating one kind of plant on another kind;
the sap obtained by the stock for itself, being found to feed
and perfect the graft. But this operation has its limits. It does
not extend beyond plants having a certain affinity. The apple
tree may be planted on the pear or quince. It will not succeed
on the peach or the cherry. If the cases prove that the same food
suffices for the apple and the pear, they equally prove that different
foods are required for the apple and peach. It is said, even,
that the fruit from the peach graft on the almond is not precisely
the same with that from a peach graft on a plum.
It may be offered as another argument to the
same effect, that all animal and vegetable decompositions answer
indiscriminately as manures. The fact is not precisely so. Certain
manures succeed best with certain plants. It is true, nevertheless,
that animal and vegetable substances, in a decomposed state, are,
generally, manures for plants. Fish even, an animal from the water,
is successfully used as a manure for Indian corn and other craps.
But this and similar examples prove only that some ingredients
are the same in all animals and plants; not that all the ingredients
in each are the same.
The chemist, though as yet a fellow student,
as much as a preceptor of the agriculturist, justly claims attention
to the result of his processes. From that source we learn that
the number of known elements, not yet decomposable, is between
forty and fifty; that about seven or eight belong to the organs
of plants; that different elements enter into the composition
of the came plant; and that they are combined in different numbers
and in different proportions, in different plants. Supposing,
then, as must be supposed, that these different elements, in their
actual quantities and proportions, are adapted to the quantities
and the proportions of the existing varieties of plants, it would
happen, in so great a change as that in question, with respect
to the number and variety of plants, that the quantities and the
proportions of the elements would not be adapted to the particular
kinds and numbers of plants retained by man for his own use. Like
the types of the alphabet, apportioned to the words composing
a particular book, when applied to another book materially different
in its contents, there would be of some a deficiency, of others,
a useless surplus.
Were it less difficult to admit that all the
sources of productiveness could be exclusively appropriated to
the food of man, is it certain that an obstacle to his indefinite
multiplication would not be encountered in one of the relations
between the atmosphere and organized beings?
Animals, including man, and plants, may be regarded
as the most important part of the terrestrial creation. They are
preeminent in their attributes; and all nature teems with their
varieties and their multitudes, visible and invisible. To all
of them the atmosphere is the breath of life. Deprived of it,
they all equally perish. But it answers this purpose by virtue
of its appropriate constitution and character. What are these?
The atmosphere is not a simple but a compound
body. In its least compound state, it is understood to contain,
besides what is called vital air, others noxious in themselves,
yet without a portion of which, the vital air becomes noxious.
But the atmosphere in its natural state, and in its ordinary communication
with the organized world, comprises various ingredients or modifications
of ingredients, derived from the use made of it, by the existing
variety of animals and plants. The exhalations and perspirations,
the effluvia and transpirations of these, are continually charging
the atmosphere with a heterogeneous variety and immense quantity
of matter, which together must contribute to the character which
fits it for its destined purpose of supporting, the life and health
of organized beings. Is it unreasonable to suppose, that if, instead
of the actual composition and character of the animal and vegetable
creation, to which the atmosphere is now accommodated, such a
composition and character of that creation were substituted, as
would result from a reduction of the whole to man and a few kinds
of animals and plants-is the supposition unreasonable, that the
change might essentially affect the aptitude of the atmosphere
for the functions required of it? and that so great an innovation
might be found, in this respect, not to accord with the order
and economy of nature?
The relation of the animal part and the vegetable
part of the creation to each other, through the medium of the
atmosphere, comes in aid of the reflection suggested by the general
relation between the atmosphere and both. It seems to be now well
understood, that the atmosphere, when respired by animals, becomes
unfitted for their further use, and fitted for the absorption
of vegetables; and that when evolved by the latter, it is refitted
for the respiration of the former; an interchange being thus kept
up, by which this breath of life is received by each, in a. wholesome
state, in return for it in an unwholesome one.
May it not be concluded from this admirable arrangement
and beautiful feature in the economy of nature, that if the whole
class of animals were extinguished, the use of the atmosphere
by the vegetable class alone would exhaust it of its life-supporting
power? that, in like manner, if the whole class of vegetables
were extinguished, the use of it by the animal class alone would
deprive it of its fitness for their support? And if such would
be the effect of an entire destruction of either class, in relation
to the other, the inference seems to press itself upon us, that
so vast a change in the proportions of each class to the other,
and in the species composing the respective classes, as that in
question, might not be compatible with the continued existence
and health of the remaining species of the two classes.
The immensity of the atmosphere, compared with
the mass of animals and vegetables, forms an apparent objection
only to this view of the subject. The comparison could at most
suggest questions as to the period of time necessary to exhaust
the atmosphere of its unrenewed capacity to keep alive animal
or vegetable nature, when deprived, either, of the support of
the other. And this period contracts itself at once to the imagination,
when it is recollected that the immensity of the atmosphere is
the effect of its elasticity and rarefaction. We know from the
barometer, that condensed to the specific gravity of mercury,
its rise above the surface of the earth would be but about thirty
inches; and from the well pump, that condensed to the specific
gravity only of water, which is nearly the same with that of the
human body, its rise would be little more than as many feet; that
is, a little more than five times the human stature. It is found
that a single human person, employs in respiration not less than
sixteen or eighteen times his own weight of common air, in every
twenty-four hours. In different degrees, some greater, some less,
the case is the same with most other animals. Plants make a correspondent
use of air for their purposes.
Other views of the economy of nature coincide
with the preceding. There is a known tendency in all organized
beings to multiply beyond the degree necessary to keep up their
actual numbers. It is a wise provision of nature-1, to guard against
the failure of the species: 2, to afford, in the surplus, a food
for animals, whether subsisting on vegetables, or on other animals
which subsist on vegetables. Nature has been equally provident
in guarding against an excessive multiplication of any one species
which might too far encroach on others, by subjecting each, when
unduly multiplying itself, to be arrested in its progress by the
effect of the multiplication-1, in producing a deficiency of food;
and where that may not happen, 2, in producing a state of the
atmosphere unfavorable to life and health. All animals as well
as plants sicken and die in a state too much crowded. It is the
case with our domestic animals of every sort, where no scarcity
of food can be the cause. To the same laws mankind are equally
subject. An increase, not consisting with the general plan of
nature, arrests itself. According to the degree in which the number
thrown together exceeds the due proportion of space and air, disease
and mortality ensue. It was the vitiated air alone which put out
human life in the crowded hole of Calcutta. In a space somewhat
enlarged, the effect would have been slower, but not less certain.
In all confined situations, from the dungeon to the crowded work-houses,
and from these to the compact population of overgrown cities;
the atmosphere becomes, in corresponding degrees, unfitted by
reiterated use, for sustaining human life and health. Were the
atmosphere breathed in cities not diluted and displaced by fresh
supplies from the surrounding country, the mortality would soon
become general. Were the surrounding country thickly peopled and
not refreshed in like manner, the 'decay of health, though a later,
would be a necessary consequence. And were the whole habitable
earth covered with a dense population, wasteful maladies might
be looked for, that would thin the numbers into a healthy proportion.
Were the earth in every productive spot, and
in every spot capable of being made productive, appropriated to
the food of man; were the spade substituted for the plough, and
all animals consuming the food of man, or food for which human
food might be substituted, banished from existence, so as to produce
the maximum of population on the earth, there would be more than
an hundred individuals for every one now upon it. In the actual
population of many countries, it brings on occasional epidemics,
to be traced to no other origin than the state of the atmosphere.
Increase the numbers ten or twenty fold, and can it be supposed
that they would at any time find the breath of life in a condition
to support it? or, if that supposition be admissible when limited
to a single country, can it be admitted, when not only the contiguous
countries, but the whole earth was equally crowded?
Must we then adopt the opinion entertained by
some philosophers, that no variation whatever in the numbers and
proportions of the organized beings belonging to our globe, is
permitted by the system of nature? that the number of species
and of individuals, in the animal and vegetable empires, since
they attained a destined complement, has been, and must always
be, the same? that the only change possible, is in local augmentations
and diminutions which balance each other, and thus maintain the
established and unalterable order of things?
This would be the opposite extreme to that which
has been rejected. Man, though so similar in his physical constitution
to many other animals, is essentially distinguished from all other
organized beings, by the intellectual and moral powers with which
he is endowed. He possesses a reason and a will, by which he can
act on matter organized and unorganized. He can, by the exercise
of these peculiar powers, increase his subsistence, by which his
numbers may be increased beyond the spontaneous supplies of nature;
and it would be a reasonable conclusion, that making, as he does,
in his capacity of an intelligent and voluntary agent, an integral
part of the terrestrial system, the other parts of the system
are so framed as not to be altogether unsusceptible of his agency,
and unpliable to its effects.
This reasonable conclusion is confirmed by the
fact, that the capacity of man, derived from his reason and his
will, has effected an increase of particular plants and animals
conducive to an increase of his own race; and a diminution of
the numbers, if not of the species, of plants and animals displaced
by that increase.
Most, if not all, our domesticated animals probably
exceed the numbers which, without the intervention of man, would
be their natural amount; whilst the animals preying on, or interfering
with them, are proportionally reduced in their numbers.
The case is the same with cultivated plants.
They are increased beyond their natural amount; and banish or
proportionally reduce such as interfere with them.
Nor can it be said that these changes, made by
human art and industry in some regions, are balanced by corresponding
changes made by nature, in other regions. Take for examples, the
articles of wheat, rice, millet, and maize, which are the chief
food of civilized man; and which are now spread over such immense
spaces. It is not possible to regard them, as occupying no more
than their original and fixed proportions of the earth; and that
in other parts of it, they have disappeared in the same degree
in which they are thus artificially extended. These grains belong
to the torrid and temperate zones only; and so great a portion
of these zones has been explored, that it is certain, they could
not have been displaced from other parts of the globe, in the
degree in which they abound where they are now cultivated, and
where it is certain they owe their abundance to cultivation. There
must consequently be an absolute increase of them produced by
the agency of man.
Take more particularly for an example, the article
of rice, which constitutes so large a portion. of human food.
The latitudes to which its growth is limited by the nature of
the plant, are, for the most part so well known, that it may be
assumed for an unquestionable fact, that this grain cannot always
have prevailed any where in the extent in which it is now cultivated.
And it is equally certain, that the vegetable productions belonging
to the same climates, which must have been displaced by its cultivation,
have not received an equivalent introduction and extension elsewhere.
It is remarkable that the vegetable productions,
most extensively used as human food, are but little if at all
found in their indigenous state; whether that state be the same
as their present one, or a state from which they were improveable
into their present state. They seem, indeed, not likely to flourish
extensively in situations not prepared by the hand of man. The
potato, so recently brought into use, and now spreading itself
over so great a surface, can barely be traced to a native state
in the mountains of Chili; nor can it be believed that previously
to its adoption by man, it ever existed in the extent to which
cultivation is now carrying it.
These views of the subject seem to authorize
the conclusion, that although there is a proportion between the
animal and vegetable classes of beings on our globe, and between
the species in each class, with respect to which nature does not
permit such a change as would result from a destruction of the
animals and vegetables not used by man; and a multiplication of
the human race, and of the several species of animals and vegetables
used by it, sufficient to fill up the void; yet that there is
a degree of change which the peculiar faculties of man enable
him to make, and by making which his fund of subsistence and his
numbers may be augmented; there being at the same time, whenever
his numbers, and the change, exceed the admitted degree, a tendency
in that excess to correct itself.
Could it, however, be supposed that the established
system and symmetry of nature required the number of human beings
on the globe to be always the same; that the only change permitted
in relation to them was in their distribution over it: still,
as the blessing of existence to that number would materially depend
on the parts of the globe on which they may be thrown; on the
degree in which their situation may be convenient or crowded;
and on the nature of their political and social institutions,
motives would not be wanting to obtain for our portion of the
earth its fullest share, by improving the resources of human subsistence,
according to the fair measure of its capacity. For in what other
portion of equal extent will be found climates more friendly to
the health, or congenial to the feelings of its inhabitants? In
what other, a soil yielding more food with not more labor? And
above all, where will be found institutions equally securing the
blessings of personal independence and of social enjoyments? The
enviable condition of the people of the United States is often
too much ascribed to the physical advantages of their soil and
climate, and to their uncrowded situation. Much is certainly due
to these causes; but. a just estimate of the happiness of our
country will never overlook what belongs to the fertile activity
of a free people, and the benign influence of a responsible Government.
In proportion as we relax the hypothesis which
makes the aggregate number of mankind unsusceptible of change,
and believe that the resources of our country may not only contribute
to the greater happiness of a given number, but to the augmentation
of the number enjoying a greater happiness, the motives become
stronger for the improvement and extension of them.
But, whilst all are sensible that agriculture
is the basis of population and prosperity, it cannot be denied
that the study and practice of its true principles have hitherto
been too generally neglected in the United States; and that this
State has at least its full share of the blame. Now only, for
the first time, notwithstanding several meritorious examples of
earlier date, a general attention seems to be awakened to the
necessity of a reform. Patriotic societies, the best agents for
effecting it, are pursuing the object with the animation and intelligence
which characterize the efforts of a self-governed people, whatever
be the objects to which they may be directed.
Among these promising institutions, I cannot
glance at all the names of those composing that of Albemarle,
without being assured that its full quota of information will
be furnished to the general stock. I regret only, that my own
competency bears so little proportion to my wishes to co-operate
with them. That I may not be thought, however, deficient in good
will, as well as in other requisites, I shall venture on the task;
a task the least difficult, of pointing out some of the most prevalent
errors in our husbandry, and which appear -to be among those which
may merit the attention of the society, and the instructive examples
of its members.
I. The error first to be noticed is that of cultivating
land, either naturally poor or impoverished by cultivation. This
error, like many others, is the effect of habit, continued after
the reason for it has failed. Whilst there was an abundance of
fresh and fertile soil, it was the interest of the cultivator
to spread his labor over as great a surface as he could. Land
being cheap and labor dear, and the land co-operating powerfully
with the labor, it was profitable to draw as much as possible
from the land. Labor is now comparatively cheaper and land dearer.
Where labor has risen in price fourfold land has risen tenfold.
It might be profitable, therefore, now to contract the surface
over which labor is spread, even if the soil retained its freshness
and fertility. But this is not the case. Much of the fertile soil
is exhausted, and unfertile soils are brought into cultivation;
and both cooperating less with labor in producing the crop, it
is necessary to consider how far labor can be profitably exerted
on them; whether it ought not to be applied towards making them
fertile, rather than in further impoverishing them? or whether
it might not be more profitably applied to mechanical occupations,
or to domestic manufactures?
In the old countries of Europe, where labor is
cheap and land dear, the object is to augment labor, and contract
the space on which it is employed. In the new settlements taking
place in this country, the original practice here may be rationally
pursued. In the old settlements, the reason for the practice in
Europe is becoming daily less inapplicable; and we ought to yield
to the change of circumstances, by forbearing to waste our labor
on land which, besides not paying for it, is still more impoverished,
and rendered more difficult to be made rich. The crop which is
of least amount gives the blow most mortal to the soil. It has
not been a very rare thing to see land under the plough not producing
enough to feed the ploughman and his horse; and it is in such
cases that the death-blow is given. The goose is killed, without
even obtaining the coveted egg.
There cannot be a more rational principle in
the code of agriculture, than that every farm which is in good
heart should be kept so; that every one not in good heart should
be made so; and that what is right as to the farm, generally,
is so as to every part of every farm. Any system, therefore, or
want of system, which tends to make a rich farm poor, or,' does
not tend to make a poor farm rich, cannot be good for the owner;
whatever it may be for the tenant or superintendant, who has transient
interest only in it. The profit, where there is any, will not
balance the loss of intrinsic value sustained by the land.
II. The evil of pressing too hard upon the land
has also been much increased by the bad mode of ploughing it.
Shallow ploughing, and ploughing up and down hilly land, have,
by exposing the loosened soil to be carried off by rains, hastened
more than any thing else the waste of its fertility. When the
mere surface is pulverized, moderate rains on land but little
uneven, if ploughed up and down, gradually wear it away. And heavy
rains on hilly land, ploughed in that manner, soon produce a like
effect, notwithstanding the improved practice of deeper ploughing.
How have the beauty and value of this red ridge of country suffered
from this cause? And how much is due to the happy improvement
introduced by a member of this society, whom I need not name,**
by a cultivation in horizontal drills, with a plough adapted to
it? Had the practice prevailed from the first settlement of the
country, the general fertility would have been more than the double
of what the red hills, and indeed all other hilly lands, now possess;
and the scars and sores now defacing them would no where be seen.
Happily, experience is proving that this remedy; aided by a more
rational management in other respects, is adequate to the purpose
of healing what has been wounded, as well as of preserving the
health of what has escaped the calamity. It is truly gratifying
to observe how fast the improvement is spreading from the parent
example. The value of our red hills, under a mode of cultivation
which guards their fertility against wasting rains, is probably
exceeded by that of no uplands whatever; and without that advantage
they are exceeded in value by almost all others. They are lithe
more than a lease for years.
Besides the inestimable advantage from horizontal
ploughing, in protecting the soil against the wasting effect of
rains, there is a great one in its preventing the rains themselves
from being lost to the crop. The Indian corn is the crop which
most exposes the soil to be carried off by the rains; and it is
at the same time the crop which most needs them. Where the land
is not only hilly, but the soil thirsty, (as is the case particularly
throughout this mountainous range,) the preservation of the rain
as it falls, between the drilled ridges, is of peculiar importance;
and its gradual settling downwards to the roots is the best possible
mode of supplying them with moisture. In the old method of ploughing
shallow, with the furrows up and down, the rain as well as the
soil was lost.
III. The neglect of manures is another error
which claims particular notice. It may be traced to the same cause
with our excessive cropping. In the early stages of our agriculture,
it was more convenient, and more profitable, to bring new land
into cultivation, than to improve exhausted land. The failure
of new land has long called for the improvement of old land; but
habit has kept us deaf to the call.
Nothing is more certain than that continual cropping
without manure deprives the soil of its fertility. It is equally
certain that fertility may be preserved or restored, by giving
to the earth animal or vegetable manure equivalent to the matter
taken from it; and that a perpetual fertility is not, in itself,
incompatible with an uninterrupted succession of crops. The Chinese,
it is said, smile at the idea that land needs rest; as if, like
animals, it had a sense of fatigue. Their soil does not need rest,
because an industrious use is made of every fertilizing particle
that can contribute towards replacing what has been drawn from
it. And this is the more practicable with them, as almost the
whole of what is grown on their farms is consumed within them.
That a restoration to the earth of all that annually grows on
it prevents its impoverishment is sufficiently seen in our forests,
where the annual exuviae of the trees and plants replace the fertility
of which they deprive the earth. Where frequent fires destroy
the leaves and whatever else is annually dropped on the earth,
it is well known that the land becomes poorer: this destruction
of the natural crop having the same impoverishing effect as a
removal of a cultivated crop. A still stronger proof that an annual
restoration to the earth of all its annual produce will perpetuate
its productiveness, is seen where our fields are left uncultivated
and unpastured. In this case the soil, receiving from the decay
of the spontaneous weeds and grasses more fertility than they
extract from it, is, for a time at least, improved, not impoverished.
Its improvement may be, explained, by the fertilizing matter which
the weeds and grasses derive from water and the atmosphere, which
forms a net gain to the earth. At what point, or from what cause,
the formation and accumulation of vegetable mould from this gain
ceases, is not perhaps very easy to be explained. That it does
cease, is proved by the stationary condition of the surface of
the earth in old forests; and that the amount of the accumulation
varies with the nature of the subjacent earth is equally certain.
It seems to depend, also, on the species of trees and plants which
happen to contribute the materials for the vegetable mould.
But the most eligible mode of preserving the
richness, and of enriching the poverty of a farm, is certainly
that of applying to the soil a sufficiency of animal and vegetable
matter in a putrified state, or a state ready for putrefaction;
in order to procure which, too much care cannot be observed in
saving every material furnished by the farm. This resource was
among the earliest discoveries of men living by agriculture; and
a proper use of it has been made a test of good husbandry, in
all countries, ancient and modern, where its principle and profits
have been studied.
Some farmers of distinction, headed by Tull,
supposed that mere earth, in a pulverized state, was sufficient
without manure for the growth of plants; and consequently that
continued pulverization would render the soil perpetually productive;
a theory which never would have occurred to a planter of tobacco
or of Indian corn, who finds the soil annually producing less,
and less, under a constant pulverizing course. The known experiment
of Van Helmont seemed to favor the opposite theory, that the earth
parted with nothing towards the plants growing on it. If there
were no illusion in the case, the earth used by him must at least
have been destitute of vegetable mould; for in an experiment by
Woodhouse, a garden mould was diminished in its weight by a plant
which grew in it. And the latest chemical examinations of the
subject coincide with the general opinion of practical husbandmen,
that the substance of plants partakes of the substance of the
soil.
The idea is, indeed, very natural that vegetable
matter which springs from the earth, and of itself returns to
the earth, should be one source at least of the earth's capacity
to reproduce vegetable matter.
It has been asked, how it happens that Egypt
and Sicily, which have for ages been exporting their agricultural
produce, without a return of any equivalent produce, have not
lost their reproductive capacity. One answer has been, that they
have lost no small degree of it. If the fact be otherwise with
regard to Egypt, it might be accounted for by the fertilizing
inundations of the Nile. With regard to Sicily, there may be something
in the system of husbandry, or some particular local circumstances,
which countervail the continued asportation of the fruits of the
soil. But it is far more probable, that the Island is less productive
than it once was. It is certainly less of a granary for other
countries now, than it was when it received that title from the
ancient Romans. And its population being diminished, the internal
consumption must also be diminished. If a single farm is rendered
less productive by a continued removal of its crops, without any
adequate returns, no reason occurs why it should not happen to
a number of farms multiplied to the extent of a whole country.
And that individual farms do lose their fertility,
in proportion as crops are taken from them, and returns of manure
neglected, is a fact not likely to be questioned.
If it were, Virginia, unfortunately, is but too
capable of furnishing the proofs. Her prevailing crops have been
very exhausting, and the use of manures has been particularly
neglected.
Tobacco and Indian corn, which for a long time,
on the east side of the Blue Mountains, were the articles almost
exclusively cultivated, and which continue to be cultivated, the
former extensively, the latter universally, are known to be great
impoverishers of the soil. Wheat, which has for a number of years
formed a large portion of the general crop, is also-an exhausting
crop. So are rye and oats, which enter occasionally into our farming
system.
With so many consumers of the fertility of the
earth, and so little attention to the means of repairing their
ravages, no one can be surprised at the impoverished face of the
country; whilst every one ought to be desirous of aiding in the
work of reformation.
The first main step towards it, is to make the
thieves restore as much as possible of the stolen fertility. On
this, with other improvements which may be made in our husbandry,
we must depend for the rescue of our farms from their present
degraded condition.
Of tobacco, not a great deal more than one-half
of the entire plant is carried to market. The residue is an item
on the list of manures; and it is known to be in its quality a
very rich one. The crop of tobacco, however, though of great value,
covers but a small proportion of our cultivated ground; and its
offal can, of course, contribute but inconsiderably to the general
stock of manure. It is probable, also, that what it does contribute,
has been more carefully used as a manure than any other article
furnished by our crops.
The article which constitutes our principal manure,
is wheat straw. It is of much importance, therefore, to decide
aright on the mode of using it. There are three modes: 1. Carrying
it from the farm yard, after having passed through, or being trodden
and enriched by cattle. In that mode, the greater part of it must
be used, if used at all; the straw going through that process
being a necessary part of the food allotted to the cattle. To
derive the full advantage from it, it ought to be hauled out before
the substance has been wasted by rain, by the sun, and by the
wind; and to be buried in the earth as soon after as possible.
2. Spreading the straw on the surface of the ground. Many respectable
farmers are attached to this mode, as protecting the soil from
the sun; and by keeping it moist, favoring the vegetation underneath,
whether spontaneous or artificial; whilst the straw itself is
gradually decomposed into a manure. The objection to this mode
is the loss by evaporation, before this last effect is obtained.
3. Turning the straw at once under the surface of the earth. This
would seem to be the best mode of managing manures generally;
least of their substance being then lost. When the grain is trodden
out from the straw, it is left in a state easily admitting this
operation. Some difficulty may attend it, when the grain is threshed
from the straw, by the flail, or by the machines now in use, neither
of which break the straw sufficiently to pieces.
It may be remarked with regard to this article
of manure: 1. That its weight is barely more than that of the
grain. 2. That the grain is the part which makes the greatest
draft on the; fertility of the earth. 3. That the grain is for
the most part not consumed within the farm. It 'is found on trial
that a stalk of wheat, as generally cut, including the chaff,
and the grains borne by the stalk, are pretty nearly of equal
weight. The case is probable the same with rye, and not very different
with oats. The proportion of fertilizing matter in the straw,
to that in the grain, has not, as far as I know, been brought
to any satisfactory test. It is, doubtless, much less in the straw,
which alone, in the case of wheat, is with us returnable in any
form to the earth. This consideration, whilst it urges us to make
the most of the article as a manure, warns us of its insufficiency.
The stubble, and the roots of the small grains,
not being taken from the earth, may be regarded as elapsing into
a fertility equal to that of which they deprived the earth. This
remark is applicable to all cultivated plants, the roots of which
are not. an esculent part.
An eminent citizen and celebrated agriculturist*
of this State has, among other instructive lessons, called the
public attention to the value of the corn stalk as a manure. I
am persuaded that he has not overrated it. And it is a subject
of agreeable reflection, that an article which is so extensively
cultivated as that of Indian corn, and which is so particularly
exhausting, should be the one so capable of repairing the injury
it does. The cornstalk as a fodder is of great value. Not only
the leaves, but the husk inclosing the ear, and the cob enclosed
by it, are all more or less valuable food, when duly preserved
and dealt out to cattle. There is no better fodder than the, leaves
or blades for horses and oxen, nor any so much approved for sheep;
the husk or shuck is a highly-nourishing food for neat cattle.
And the pickings of the stock, even at a late season, and after
much exposure to the weather, support them better than any of
the straws. From the saccharine matter in the stock, which is
long retained about the joints, it cannot be doubted that if cut
early, or before exposure to the weather, into parts small enough
for mastication, it would well repay, as a food for cattle, the
labor required for it.
*Doctor Robertson.
**Col. T. M. Randolph.
