the threshold to Wisdom's temple. We must avail ourselves of the new discoveries and improvements which are being made constantly. In no way can it be so well done, as by subscribing for and reading some of the very able and excellent agricultural periodicals of this State. The sum required is so small, and the amount of valuable information placed before them so great, that it is a matter of wonder to me every farmer does not take at least one paper, if for no other reason than to amuse and instruct his family. It is however a positive duty, which we owe to agriculture and the country, to patronize these papers. When our town clubs are formed, I hope measures will be adopted, to have at least one good agricultural paper taken in every school district.

In conclusion, my friends, I have a favor to ask, and if granted, as it most easily can be, you will be equally benefitted with myself. I wish to have the Genesee County Agricultural Society second to no society in the State, for the number and intelligence of its members, the efficiency of its officers, and the amount of money annually disbursed in premiums to the deserving of all classes within the limits of the county.

Will you grant the favor? Shall my wish be gratified? God grant that the answer from each and all, be a triumphant affirmative at our next anniversary.

ON THE IMPROVEMENT AND PROFITABLE CULTIVATION OF CLAY LANDS.

[Remarks of JOHN P. BEEKMAN, President, at the Columbia County Fair.]

FELLOW-CITIZENS - The third exhibition of the Fair of the Agricultural Society of the County of Columbia is ended. We have now met to receive the usual address, and then to distribute the several prizes to which that exhibition has led, to those who have justly won them. Here our labors, as a Society, for the year are closed; but I trust, to be individually renewed, with increased exertion, and better success for the future. Competition, such as this Society engenders, cannot but be useful to the Farmer; for here he has the evidence of the skill of his neighbors before him, and if he will not profit by the

lessons these teach him, depend upon it, he is not a man for times. like these.

The march of society is onward, and more has been done in the last forty years for the improvement and happiness of mankind than in many centuries before. The life of the Farmer is that of constant exertion but when his labors are rewarded and his hopes cheered by fruitful returns, and all the comforts that necessarily follow, he will look back with pleasure on the past year that has ensured him the reward of his toil. This gratification is not lessened by a feeling of independence that springs from well-conducted efforts, nor by the estimation in which he sees himself held by an intelligent community. Under such circumstances, he proceeds with renewed energy to his work; and whether by the evening fireside or under an August sun, he feels the same buoyancy of spirits, the same ardent desire to press forward its execution.

Seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, follow each other in quick succession, and so do the seasons of our lives: but when our summer is gone and winter is come, we will at least have the consolation to think that our lives of industry and sobriety have not shortened our days or lessened our enjoyments-and that old age will find us with no premature infirmities, with a reputation well established, and a competence to support declining years.

If the life of the farmer is a life of toil, it is a life rich in the comfort it affords, and richer still in the independence which springs from it. He lives not alone for himself he lives for the benefit of mankind. No country can prosper without him, no government exist without him; he is the lever that sets in motion all the elements that conduce to the

existence, comfort and happiness of man. He has cleared your forests, made your roads, furnished the materials for building your villages and cities. He builds your school houses, erects and supports three-fourths of your temples of worship; and if education, civilization, religion or good government is to be settled or promoted, you are sure to find in him a firm and steady friend. Generally kind and humane, the poor have in him a friend on whom they can depend; and his habits of industry, sobriety and morality, ensure stability to republican government, and furnish example upon which the lives and habits of the rising generation are formed. The product of his industry supplies us not alone with the materials for trade; but on him, under Providence, we depend not only for existence, but for the thousand comforts that follow from labors so bountifully blest by our Maker.

To encourage this man in his great work, we have met this day; and if aught we have said, or can say, can add to his wealth, intelligence, respectability or usefulness, we have long since been repaid a thousand-fold in the benefits he has conferred upon this whole community. Last year, fellow citizens, when I had the honor to address an audience like this, the principal subject of remark was upon the construction of the plough, and the necessity of good and careful ploughing to increase our just expectations for ample returns for our labor.

The subject to which I would now call your attention is, the Improvement and Profitable Cultivation of our Clay Lands.

It is not necessary, on the present occasion, that I should go into a close analysis of the different kinds of soil, but to state that the lands in this section of the State are composed principally of flint, lime and alum, or in other words, clay. The best lands for arable husbandry have a proper mixture of those three ingredients; and where they are so blended, they constitute a soil that admits of the most profitable cultivation.

In some parts of our State, they are so mixed; but this is the case in a small portion of our extensive county. Here we must take things as we find them; and as in this section, for many miles up and down the Hudson river, but not more than a mile or two in width, we find a streak of clay bounded on the west principally by a streak of sand; on the east by one of flint or gravel; it becomes us to inquire whether anything can be done with this clayey portion, which is now our poorest land, to reclaim it, and make its cultivation more profitable. Chemists tell us that the most profitable lands are those which are composed of three-eighths of clay, three-eighths of pulverized limestone, and two-eighths of sand, or about this proportion; and an excellent soil for wheat is composed of three-fifths of sand, two-fifths of three earths, lime, flint and clay. I do not use chemical terms in speaking of these earths. I use only the English words, that I may be easily understood, for the object of this address is to be practically useful. I wish then, that you would bear in mind that it is the proper mixture of those ingredients, clay, sand and lime, that constitutes our most fertile soils; and it follows that, when either of these three substances is in more than due proportion to the other, or the earth is entirely composed of the one, so sterility proportionately as necessarily follows. It is not alone agricultural chemists who have made these observations, but our best farmers have long since discovered that a soil judiciously mixed,

.

if I may use the term, is the most congenial to the easy and profitable culture of all grasses, grains and fruits.

One of the most noted chemists, Berghman, tells us, as corroborative of the preceding remarks, that these three earths enter into the composition of plants, or in other words, plants are made from them in different proportions; and he tells you how much of each enter into the composition of wheat, oats, barley, rye, potatoes and clover.

It therefore admits not of a doubt - because the man of science and the practical farmer, unknown to each other, and by different modes of reasoning, bring the results of their respective observations to the same point.

The one tells us that these three ingredients, lime, sand and clay, constitute the best land; and the other tells us, that he finds by analysis, that these several soils enter into the composition of the plants themselves. So far, all is right. Now, what practical deductions can be drawn from the above facts? Plants, we all know, derive their nourishment from the soil they stand in, and the air by which they are surrounded. If the soil they stand in does not admit of an easy egress of the roots of the plant through it, and likewise afford it that food most congenial to its growth, the air by which it is surrounded can do little to bring it vigorously forward.

Clay, unmixed, we know, becomes hard by heat; and it is of such a quality, that the admixture of water with it makes it unpleasantly adhesive. In summer, therefore, it is apt to become dry and hard; and in spring and fall or wet weather, too tenacious of water and holds it too long for plants to thrive in. Our object is, therefore, to prevent it from baking in dry weather, and in wet to permit the moisture to pass through it, that neither excess may be injurious to the growing plant.

There is a single remedy and a simple remedy for all this; and that is, to follow up our first suggestion, confirmed by both the philosopher and farmer. Open and mix the soil, so that the roots of plants pass freely through it, and the water likewise. How is this to be done? By drawing on what it is deficient in-lime, flint or sand. Either of these will open the soil, and answer the purpose. Manure will do the same thing, but it will not be so permanent; so will the ploughing in of either green or dry crops, or chips, or stones, or leaves, or anything that will open the earth and aid the progress of the roots of the plants.

A friend in an adjoining town, Claverack, tells me that these suggestions some time since occurred to him; and having the oppor[Assembly, No. 100.]

44

tunities, he has adopted the practice of flooding a clay lot by a muddy stream, rendered turbid by sand in rainy weather when it is swollen; and by letting the water pass over it in this state, he has had deposited over it within a few years, hundreds of tons of sand and gravel, and it has since produced him the greatest yield of hay he has ever had.

If I understood him right, he has recovered several acres in this way, and has already been more than a hundred times compensated for the expense of the plan he has adopted. He has so managed as to dam or prevent the water from passing off at those times, until it had made its deposite and when it had, he opened the sluices and let it pass off. The labor and the expense were trifling, but he reaps the benefit of the thought, and deserves our thanks for adopting it.

Another friend tells me, that he has drawn sand from a neighboring hillock, on a lot of clay land and in the crops that followed, it produced as good an effect as if the land had been highly manured. The first crop upon it, after making the experiment, was a crop of grass; and he was so pleased with it, that he earnestly persuaded all he could to visit it and satisfy themselves by their own personal observation. A third friend tells me, that he summer-fallowed a poor, wornout clay lot in 1842, intending to manure it and sow it to wheat in the fall. He ploughed it and drew on a portion of it a sufficiency of stable manure. On another portion he drew sand and gravel, and spread it. Another portion, he left unmanured and unsanded.

He sowed the whole to wheat. In the summer of 1843, the past summer, the part manured was very good, the part sanded equally good, and on the part to which neither had been applied, the wheat was miserably poor. These three experiments all tend to the same result, and to confirm the theory of the philosopher and the observation of the farmer.

The clay land in Columbia county was known by our oldest inhabitants to yield large crops of wheat immediately after clearing. Indeed, it was thought that none but clay land would produce wheat. The farmers therefore, who owned other soil, bought these clay lands solely with a view to raise wheat; and I have been repeatedly told by an old inhabitant, that farmers would purchase detached lots of clay, distant from their farms, if they had no land of this kind, for the express purpose of raising wheat. This was soon after or before the timber or growth of the forest was removed, where the ground for centuries had been annually covered with the leaves of the trees, or remains of them and the falling timber. From these deposit, therefore,