The Art Of Farming

A man possesses a farm, tlie land being of avov.ijio fertility, wliich medium meuns it is half worn out or only exhausted of half Lts plant food, and tlius lias the power of growing half crops. If this man goos 011 Löwering tho condition of the land, hu is a bad farmer; if he doos not wenken the 8OÜ f urthar nor improveits capability to grow hoavier crops, he will be a non-progreaeive a kind of milk-and-watcr farmer; but if ho manases to stoadily inorcase the fruitfulness of tho whole extent, till, in the end, it bcsulncirntly li'li to gltw as heavy crops of evory variety as can be brought to perfeotion, he is a good farmer, and one tho country should honor ; ho has not hidden his talent onder a bushel. It is easior to farm wcll than ill. The man who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew bcfore, and makea every othor kind of produco doublo, too, is a happier man taan the ono who plods on, doing neithor better nor worse than the average ; whilo the miserable mortal who impovorishes his land must feel how degradad a position he stands in, and bis miñd must sink lower and lowor with his property. If a report of every farm through every parish in the Union was made once in geven years, and tho improvement, the impovcrishmcnt, or tho non improvement of each wns published, it would give the country at largo a botter idea of what is going on in agriculture. It is no use denying facto, and tho truth is, starting f rom tho Eat, the land is robbed of more than half its fertility, and still as population moves on, so does tho exhausting system. If, when a parish, a county, or a State is half impoverished, a stop can bo put to tho debilitating procesa, why not Btop at the beginning? Why not roimburso at tho start? Land is seldom too rich, and when it is said to be " in tho very highest state of fortility," what a pity tobringitdown. Yot this is tho custom, tho fashion, and the exampl-ï set by all. This kind of policycnrri.id into other linos of business would causo men to say the guilty partios wero insane or fools. Land cannot throw up immense crops on water and air; therefore if these crops are sold, off, tho land is tlmt much the poorer. But science and even comnion exporienee proves that there are stages at which some of tlio produotions of tho oarth can be taken away waeJJ nothing has been abstracted to causo injury, and if at this period of the crop's growth it is turned into mauure, the land is benefitud without. any foreigu aid. Thus, by having intervening erops of this kind, there may be things sold one yoar which will be replaced the next by this renovation. This is why the four-course systera, or some other suitable rotation, is insisted upon in England. Poor land is brought to be rich, and good land is kept up on the best estates ; yet thero are annually great quantities of fat cattle and sheep sold i'rom these farms, and wool, choese, butter, etc. continue to be produced, because thero is an art in doing this so as to improve and increase the stamina of the soil. There is no mystery whatever in the case, for here is a lield of barley, say grown af ter roofs ; this barley, probably sixty bushels per acre, takes away considerably from tho soil, though being a quick-growing gxain, not so much as other sorts ; but clover follows, having boen sown with barley. Everybody knows that when clover is cut youngtho ground is benefited by producing it ; therefore, if it is mown twice, and cut each time when ooming into full bloom, there will be fro.ni tho two mowings tons per acre of matter to be manufactured into mauure, which has not weakened the land it grew on; consequently this is a renovating erop, and has dono more in addi'ig fertility than the barley did in subtracting ; next comes wheat, and that takes more away than tho barley did ; but then comes the intervening root erop, wliich puts far more into the soil b)r being consumed than tho wheat bas taken out, and so this easy, plain system is a fair exposition of all tiiose wliich aro devised to enable farmers to mako nioney while