EXTENSIVE, INTENSIVE FARMING. 41 



been largely washed. It was a limestone soil in origin which had 

 never contained much potash. Being possessed of that fact we 

 poured the potash into the soil, and were soon able to raise four 

 tons of clover to the acre, seventy-six bushels of oats and ninety 

 tons of hay on thirty acres. The key to the situation had been 

 found. 



On my own farm it is phosphoric acid that is wanted, and by 

 buying and using it aright, I have been able to largely increase 

 production. I have to say to you this afternoon that chemical 

 manures are profitable plant food. Were it not for them I should 

 not attempt farming in New England. The fact that they are 

 plant food cuts the chain that binds you to narrow farming, and 

 prevents expansion of farm operations. It has emancipated you 

 from littleness of operations and opened up to you a wider field ; 

 it enables you to farm as many acres as you have the ambition 

 to farm and are capable of farming, I do not care whether it is 

 50, 100 or 5,000 acres. There is no limit to the acreage you 

 may till, so far as plant food is concerned. AVhen we arrive at 

 such a point in New England agriculture, tell me if the business 

 is not worthy the attention of the boys and girls on the farm? 

 Tell me if there is an industry that develops so many sided a 

 man? It involves outdoor exercise, in which every muscle is 

 operated; it is a thinking business, developing the mind; an 

 executive business, employing labor ; it is a capitalist's business 

 instead of a laborer's business, giving a new social status ; it is 

 a fascinating business, as it brings a man in contact with life in 

 its varied forms ; it is the world's greatest industry, and the 

 agriculture of the future is the business that will develop the 

 highest type of citizenship and the life that, after all, will give 

 the most repose, while giving the largest culture. The only lion 

 in the way is the habit of narrow operation which we have fixed. 

 You know that habit is second nature and hard to throw off. 

 It takes great strength to train to modern service our ancestral 

 brain, to throw off the burden of the unnumbered years of dead 

 men's habits, methods and ideas." 



