INDIANA   FARMER.
Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, Mechanics and the Useful Arts.
TOL  II.]
[NO. 14
D. V. Hollo way,)  ,,,.,„ .
W. T. Oc.mi,,   'j Editors.
RICHMOND, IND., MARCH' 15,1853.
) ilolloirar dfe Co.,
S Publishers.
.    (Hommtmtcations   or tljc .farmer.
For the Farmer.
Messrs. Editers:—On page 180 of the Farmer, I noticed the question asked why is it that
flax cannot be successfully grown a second
time on the same ground for a period of fifteen
or twenty years. Now I was not aware that
this was a fact and am almost disposed to
quote the writers motto "be sure you're right
and then go ahead."
I am almost old enough to remember that in
an early day in the West, almost every farmer
raised a "patch" of flax every year, and the
busy housewife and her daughters spun and
wove it into clothing for the family. In fact it
furnished almost the only every day clothinirtg
of the Farmer and his sons during warm weather. The flax crop then was an important one
to the farmer, because a failure in. that crop
was equivalent to a failure in the supply of
clothing for the family. The opinion then prevalent among farmers was, that after a piece of
ground had produced one crop of flax, it was
not safe to attempt to raise flax again on the
same ground, under a period of some years.—
But this did not always hold true, for I once
raised an extra crop of flax both for seed and
fibre, the sixth year succeeding a flax crop, and
ho manure was applied to either of the flax
crops or to the intervening crops of coin,
wheat or clover. Now whether this ground
Avould have produced good flax the third, fourth
lif fifth year I have no means of knowing. I once
sowed flax in a field, a part of which had Been
in flax the year before, and to test this matter
sowed a small part of the ground that had been
in flax the year before. The. flax all canie up
alike, and I coiild see no difference in its
growth till it got about kliee high, then thc flax
where there had been flax the year preceding,
began to die and before time for pulling the
whole had perished and was totally worthless,
and oh that part of the field where there had
never been flax I raised the best crop 1 ever
raised in my life. This clearly proved that thc
failure was entirely owing to the preceding
crop. I have been told by intelligent gentlemen from Ireland that they there raise flax
many years in succession on the same piece of
ground, but they apply a liberal dressin* of
compost or manure to every crop. Query;
would not trie same method be attended with
like results here, can any one answer.
There is a diversity of opinion as to the
length of time necessary for land to recover
from the exhaustion of a flax crop and all
those   diverse   opinions may have facts, or at
least the semblance of facts to sustain them.	
On land abounding m all the elements  of fer
tility necessary to the production of flax, a
crop might be successfully produced in a very
few years after a flax crop had been taken oft".
A soil possessing less of those elements would
require a still longer period to recover and it
may possibly be as Mr. Wesler says, that some
soils require a period of fifteen or twenty
years, though I think in this part of the country, such cases are very rare.
1 delight in facts, but when they are not at
command, we have some times to theorize a
little. Flax must require some food peculiar
to itself, that exists in the soil to so limited an
extent, that a single crop exhausts it and therefore it cannot produce a second crop until a
supply of that peculiar food is furnished to tho
soil, either by nature or by artificial means.—
Or else the theory is true that all plants throw
off excrementitious matter by their roots, and
the excrements thrown off by the flax, is so offensive to itself that it will not again grow, until all those offensive matters aje absorbed by
other plants.
The aid of a good chemist to make an analysis of flax and of the soil in which it grew,
both before the crop was put in and after it
was taken off, would no doubt throw much
more light on this rather dark subject than all
our theorizing. J. M.
Beech Grove, Feb. 20th, 1S53.
[For tho Indiana Farmer.
Exhausting the Soil.
Near Economy:, Wayne Co., Ind., )
-     2nd  Month 28th, 1853. \
There is no subject connected with agricultural economy more calculated to alarm us,
than that of tho exhausting of the soil, we
farmers of Indiana may conclude our lands
are so rich, in all the elements of crops, that
wo need not be alarmed, and that wo may go
on, concluding, that there is no danger because
we can raise twenty bushels of wheat, and fifty
bushels of corn, to the acre, and other kinds of
grain in proportion, but do we not know that if
we are all the time extracting the precious
atoms of fertilizers, and sending them to distant markets, never to be returned, as is the
case with wheat. In every barrel of flour which
we sell, we sell about thirty pounds of the
most valuable of all the fertilizers nitrogen,
the question is how are we to know that this is
the case; let me instance one which is on record which cannot be contradicted. In the State
of New York when their lands were new,
about 75 years ago, upon good lands about
Albany, the capitol of the State, they raised
from twenty to forty bushels of wheat per acre,
thirty bushels to the acre was a common crop,
but how is it now.  Bv the State census of 1845