The presence
of acid, by restraining the productive powers of the soil, has, in a
great measure, saved it from exhaustion; and after a course of cropping,
which would have utterly ruined soils much better constituted, the
powers of our acid land remain not greatly impaired, though dormant,
and ready to be called into action by merely being relieved of its acid
quality. A few crops will reduce a new acid field to so low a rate of
product, that it scarcely will pay for its cultivation; but no great
change is afterwards caused, by continuing scourging tillage and
grazing, for fifty years longer. Thus our acid soils have two remarkable
and opposite qualities,--both proceeding from the same cause; they can
neither be enriched by manure, nor impoverished by cultivation, to
any great extent. Qualities so remarkable deserve all our powers of
investigation; yet their very frequency seems to have caused them to be
overlooked; and our writers on agriculture have continued to urge those
who seek improvement, to apply precepts drawn from English authors,
to soils which are totally different from all those for which their
instructions were intended.
* * * * *
=_Francis Wayland, 1796-1865._= (Manual, pp.
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