THE AMERICAN EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. "To render Agriculture more productive and beneficial to all, it is necessary that its principles should be better understood, and that we should profit more from the experience of each other, and by the example of other countries which excel us in this great business."-BUEL. THE work upon husbandry now ushered before the American public is the production of an English gentleman of great intelligence, assisted by some of the best authorities upon rural subjects in his country. By collecting and condensing the most interesting details relative to farming, chiefly derived from living authors, such as Professors Liebig, Lowe, Sir J. E. Smith, Brande, Youatt, Stephens, Thompson, Lindley, I. F. Johnson, etc., etc., he has been enabled to present the very latest information, and furnish a fund of matter which cannot fail to attract all who take an interest in rural affairs, so long studied and so thoroughly understood as these must needs be in Great Britain. The absence of speculative views, with the very practical and matter-of-fact character of the information given upon all subjects treated of, will perhaps be found to constitute the highest recommendation of "C. W. Johnson's Farmers' Encyclopædia, and Dictionary of Rural Affairs." The comparatively limited range of English Agriculture is strongly contrasted with the diversity of culture met with in the United States. A work limited to an account of productions of the soil and climate of England would leave out many of the most important crops which exact the attention of the American farmer and planter. Hence the necessity of adapting a book of the kind to the new localities into which it is introduced. This, as may be well supposed, presents a task of no small labour. It has been charged upon agriculturists, that improvements in husbandry encounter great opposition, and generally work their way very slowly; whereas inventions and improvements made in the manufacturing and mechanic arts are seized upon and put to profit almost as quickly as promulgated. The late and justly celebrated Mr. Coke, of Holkam, England, the great benefactor of his own country, and, indeed, of every other country where agriculture is cherished, succeeded, by the adoption of an enlightened course of tillage, in converting a sandy and comparatively sterile district into one of very great productiveness. But, though his improvements were on so large a scale, and the results so very striking to observers, such was the general ignorance, apathy, or prejudice prevailing in the neighbouring counties, that he estimated the rate at which his improved process spread around him, at only about three miles a year. A better condition of things would seem to exist at present in the United States, doubtless owing to the extension of education. But a few months have passed since the treatise upon Agricultural Chemistry of the celebrated Dr. Liebig, reached this side of the Atlantic, and though much of it is couched in the abstruse phraseology of science, still has it been eagerly sought after in all directions, gone through several editions. Can any stronger proof be furnished of the high State of intelligence pervading a large portion of the agricultural population of the and United States? The advances in agricultural improvement have, of late years, been in what mathematicians call a geometrical ratio, the pace increasing with great celerity at every successive step. In proportion as the influences of modern education become diffused, the savage characteristics of man are softened down, and the better feelings of his nature ac THE AMERICAN EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. "To render Agriculture more productive and beneficial to all, it is necessary that its principles should be better understood, and that we should profit more from the experience of each other, and by the example of other countries which excel us in this great business."-BUEL. 1 THE work upon husbandry now ushered before the American public is the production of an English gentleman of great intelligence, assisted by some of the best authorities upon rural subjects in his country. By collecting and condensing the most interesting details relative to farming, chiefly derived from living authors, such as Professors Liebig, Lowe, Sir J. E. Smith, Brande, Youatt, Stephens, Thompson, Lindley, I. F. Johnson, etc., etc., he has been enabled to present the very latest information, and furnish a fund of matter which cannot fail to attract all who take an interest in rural affairs, so long studied and so thoroughly understood as these must needs be in Great Britain. The absence of speculative views, with the very practical and matter-of-fact character of the information given upon all subjects treated of, will perhaps be found to constitute the highest recommendation of "C. W. Johnson's Farmers' Encyclopædia, and Dictionary of Rural Affairs." it is introduced. The comparatively limited range of English Agriculture is strongly contrasted with the diversity of culture met with in the United States. A work limited to an account of productions of the soil and climate of England would leave out many of the most important crops which exact the attention of the American farmer and planter. Hence the necessity of adapting a book of the kind to the new localities into which This, as may be well supposed, presents a task of no small labour. It has been charged upon agriculturists, that improvements in husbandry encounter great opposition, and generally work their way very slowly; whereas inventions and improvements made in the manufacturing and mechanic arts are seized upon and put to profit almost as quickly as promulgated. The late and justly celebrated Mr. Coke, of Holkam, England, the great benefactor of his own country, and, indeed, of every other country where agriculture is cherished, succeeded, by the adoption of an enlightened course of tillage, in converting a sandy and comparatively sterile district into one of very great productiveness. But, though his improvements were on so large a scale, and the results so very striking to observers, such was the general ignorance, apathy, or prejudice prevailing in the neighbouring counties, that he estimated the rate at which his improved process spread around him, at only about three miles a year. A better condition of things would seem to exist at present in the United States, doubtless owing to the extension of education. But a few months have passed since the treatise upon Agricultural Chemistry of the celebrated Dr. Liebig, reached this side of the Atlantic, and though much of it is couched in the abstruse phraseology of science, still has it been eagerly sought after in all directions, and gone through several editions. Can any stronger proof be furnished of the high state of intelligence pervading a large portion of the agricultural population of the United States? The advances in agricultural improvement have, of late years, been in what mathematicians call a geometrical ratio, the pace increasing with great celerity at every suc cessive step. In proportion as the influences of modern education become diffused, the savage characteristics of man are softened down, and the better feelings of his nature ac quire predominance. Bloody and desolating wars are viewed in their true light, and the useful arts of peace appear the only proper sources of individual pleasure and national prosperity. As, among these arts, none possesses the vital importance of agriculture, from its furnishing the means of immediate subsistence, so it may fairly be said, no other excites at the present day a greater and more pervading interest throughout Europe and America, with all who seek independence or the gratification of the most rational of tastes. The inhabitants of the United States possess advantages for the prosecution of agricultural pursuits, which, for variety and extent, surpass those enjoyed by any other people on the globe. They occupy the greatest portion of the North American continent, embracing all varieties of soil and surface, with a climate which in the southern parts admits the culture of many of the most valuable productions of the tropics, whilst the northern limits verge upon, but do not reach the less favoured regions where too severe and enduring frost entails a scanty vegetation. Commencing nearest the tropical limits, the chief attention of the planter is directed to the culture of the sugar-cane, rice, tobacco, indigo, and especially cotton, more of which last is raised in the Southern States than in all the rest of the world besides. In the amount of sugar procured from the cane, Louisiana takes the lead, though Florida, Alabama, and others of the extreme southern states produce considerable quantities. South Carolina yields the most rice, which is also raised to a greater or less extent throughout the southern states, and even as high as Tennessee, Kentucky, and southern Virginia. The cotton region is still more extensive, spreading throughout the extreme southern and south-western states, from the Atlantic far west of the Mississippi, and rising into middle Virginia, and even the lowest portion of Delaware. In the quantity of tobacco produced, Virginia stands foremost, being followed succes sively by Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, etc. The Middle States raise in the greatest abundance, maize or Indian corn, wheat, rye, barley and oats, whilst in a large portion of the Northern States, the wheat, rye, oat, potato, and especially grass crops, are extremely productive and valuable. Although maize is most extensively cultivated in the middle states, it is abundant in almost every section of the country, and from its affording so large an amount of the food of man and animals, is universally regarded as the most valuable cereal crop of the United States. Besides these there are many other rich products of the fields and forests, which enter largely into the aggregate of national wealth. The first history of American Agriculture differs from that of countries in the old world, where the advances in the arts were slow, and every acquisition marked by rudeness and simplicity. Not so, however, in America, whose intelligent European settlers came with all the appliances of advanced civilization, prepared to chop down the forests and clear away the thickets which had so long encumbered the ground and furnished a scanty subsistence to the savage hunter. For a time the roots obstructed the plough and prevented the deep turning of the soil: but they afforded no impediment to the raising of grain crops, since the light virgin mould, abounding in the alkalies and all other elements of fertility, required but the slightest stirring of the surface to answer the purposes of the plough and harrow. Here then commenced the career of the American planter and farmer, upon a capital accumulated by nature herself through the most gradual accessions. Rich harvests of grain, crops of tobacco and other products sent to Europe and sold at high prices, stimulated to renewed exertions, and the generous soil was subjected to a scourging course of tillage, by which many of the essential elements of its fertility were finally exhausted without any compensating additions. In Virginia, where the primitive settlements were made, large tracts of many hundreds and even thousands of acres, the once profitable culture of which is shown by the extensive ruins of stately mansions, now lie waste and uncultivated, or are covered with a new growth of the oak and pine, renewing forests to which the deer, once driven away, has returned. The lands bordering on the Atlantic have thus been worn out by successive years of culture without adequate help, the thinnest soils first, and next the deeper moulds. But let not those whose lots are cast in other and more prosperous parts of the Union sympathize over the decayed fortunes of once flourishing districts, and overlook their own gradual decline. It is in vain for the farmers of the western valleys and prairies to boast of the depth and inexhaustible productive powers of their lands. With every crop, some of the elements of fertility must of necessity be removed, and the greater the crops the speedier the exhaustion, unless some adequate compensation be made. The following fact, stated in the fifth volume of that valuable American periodical, "The Cultivator," shows the progress of deterioration in one of the finest wheat districts in the whole country. "Thomas Burrall, Esq., has a most excellent wheat farm in the neighbourhood of Geneva, (New York,) which he began to clear and improve twenty-one or twentytwo years ago, and on which he has made and applied much manure. Mr. Burrall informed us, in the summer of 1836, that he had noted down the average product of his wheat crop every year; that dividing the twenty years into three periods, he found that his wheat had averaged twenty-nine bushels per acre during the first of these periods; twenty-five bushels the acre during the second; and but twenty bushels the acre during the third period-thus showing a diminished fertility of nearly onethird, under what may there be denominated a good system of husbandry." All, then, who are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and even those now luxuriating upon the most fertile soils, must, sooner or later, be reduced to the necessity of adding to their fields some of the agents of fertility, and of adopting new means by which they can obtain crops that may be compensating and profitable. The late Judge Buel, in referring to a picture drawn by the Hon. James M. Garnett, of the deteriorated condition of Virginia agriculture, says :-"Let not the Northerners take credit to themselves, from this outline of old Virginia husbandry, or from the ingenuous detail of the causes which brought it to so low a condition. Though not exactly the like causes have operated, the same deteriorating system of husbandry has prevailed with us, though perhaps to a more limited extent. Though we have personally attended more to the art-to the practice--yet we have been equally deficient in the science with our brethren in Virginia-equally indifferent to the study and application of the principles upon which good husbandry must ever be based. And although we may have begun earlier in the business of reform, whether from necessity or from choice we will not say, we are still too defective in practice to boast of our trivial acquirements. The truth is, we have regarded the soil as a kind mother, expecting her always to give, without regarding her ability to give. We have expected a continuance of her bounties, though we have abused her kindness, and disregarded her maternal admonitions. We have managed the culture of the soil as a business requiring mere animal power, rather than as one in which the intellect could be brought largely to co-operate." "But," continues the judge, in the full fervour of his zeal for the promotion of agriculture, "there is a redeeming spirit abroad. The lights of science are beaming upon the agricultural world, and dissipating the clouds of superstitious ignorance which have so long shrouded it in darkness. The causes which have for some time been actively operating to improve the condition of the other arts, and to elevate the character of those who conduct them, are extending their influence to agriculture." The course of tillage followed in America since its first settlement, and with such exhausting and disastrous effects upon the soil, has been of late aptly styled the old system, to distinguish it from the New Husbandry, which last consists in the employment of means calculated not only to arrest and prevent the exhaustion of soils, but to increase their productiveness. It is indeed gratifying to know that in many parts of our country which have suffered from the impoverishment of the land; agriculture has for many years shown signs of progressive improvement, reduced farms having been brought into increased value, and the products of many of them being raised even above the amount afforded in the days of their first exuberant culture. This has occurred in New England, in the Valley of the Hudson, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the upper portion of the Peninsula including Delaware and Eastern Maryland, in several parts of Western Maryland, Old or Eastern Virginia, etc. It is the chief object of the numerous and many admirable agricultural publications so extensively circulated at the present day, as well as of the active societies everywhere instituted, to set forth the principles and practical details of the new system of husbandry, and to demonstrate the advantages resulting from the judicious application of manures and all sorts of fertilizing agents;-from good tillage-from proper rotation of crops;-from the assistance to be derived from root-culture;-from the substitution for naked fallows, of clover and other good fallow crops. All these means are to be |