SECRETARY'S REPORT. 25 



pay here in Maine is a question which experiment can best decide. 

 The old idea that land needs rest, is but little held to in these 

 days ; still the repeated stirring of the ground in warm weather, 

 exposing the different particles to the action of the air, cleaning 

 the soil of man}'- annoying weeds and improving the mechanical 

 character, while the restorative process of nature, before spoken 

 of, is going on, must be beneficial and may be profitable. 



It is not claimed that any one of the different successions men- 

 tioned is infallibly the best, or indeed that there may not be a 

 better than either or all, or that any one way is best under all cir- 

 cumstances ; but it is claimed, and fact and argument support the 

 assumption, that upon every sufficiently cleared farm, some judi- 

 cious system of a succession of crops, extending over not too long 

 a series of years, ensuring a change before the soil shall have be- 

 come exhausted under any one crop, must be adopted, to realize 

 the greatest return for expense incurred, and at the same time 

 most surely and steadily improve the soil. 



What the rotation best adapted is will depend upon the nature 

 of the farm, the locality, access to markets, the means of the 

 farmer, and possibly, too, his tastes and disposition. The individ- 

 ual concerned must weigh these things and decide for himself as 

 best ho may. It is submitted whether it would not be better to 

 spend money on well conducted experiments in this line, rather 

 than to pay it out in premiums to sundry gentlemen for fast ani- 

 mals or big pumpkins, when oftentimes the simple reason why 

 these gentlemen are more fortunate than their neighbors, is be- 

 cause they have more ample means to lavish upon a single animal 

 or a single crop. It may do upon western prairies, where the 

 decay of the gigantic growth of centuries has accumulated vast 

 deposits of vegetable matter, to plant or sow the same crop year 

 after year, and transport the increase to distant markets, bestow- 

 ing upon bountiful nature no return ; but upon our granite soil 

 every care must be used lest the land deteriorate and fail to yield 

 remunerative returns. 



If the crop of last year has drawn so largely upon one particular 

 element as to deprive the soil in a groat measure of that element, 

 a following crop of the same cannot succeed, and it is plain that 

 one requiring differcTit pabulum, in part, must be introduced, that 

 the equilibrium may be restored. 



The farmer must be on the alert to use every means to make his 



