140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Neglect is as common as abuse. The encroachments of bushes 

 and divers sorts of vile perennial weeds tend to exhaust as well as 

 uselessly to occupy the soil, and to starve out and to crowd out 

 nutritious grasses. Much of the land occupied for grazing pur- 

 poses, by reason of its position, and for various causes, is incapa- 

 ble of improvement by the ordinary processes of cultivation ; and 

 not a little is so rocky as entirely to forbid the entrance of the 

 plow. Such lands, nevertheless, when not overstocked, nor al- 

 lowed to grow up to worthless bushes and briars, are often capable 

 of yielding the sweetest feed of any. Let us not be too exacting. 

 We do not expect mowing fields to sustain full production without 

 assistance ; why should we ask so much more of our pastures ? 

 When plants grow vigorously, the roots decompose a portion of 

 the soil, to some extent, and obtain from thence the materials which, 

 in connection with those obtained from the atmosphere, are elabor- 

 ated in the leaves and increase both top and root. A part is fed 

 off, usually more or less decays and makes a top dressing for the 

 soil, but after all, there is a draft upon the fertility of the soil which 

 needs somehow or other to be made good, or it gradually becomes 

 exhausted. How to do this, to best advantage, is a problem 

 worthy most earnest and careful investigation and experiment. It 

 must not be disguised, rather should it be well understood at the 

 very outset, that the draft upon the productiveness of the soil is 

 more severe when fed by dairy stock than by any other animals 

 which have attained their growth. With new lands, it may not be 

 seriously felt for many years, but unless the soil be unusually rich 

 in phosphates, it will be felt eventually. The amount of phosphates 

 taken up by one cow, supposing her to bear a calf and to yield 

 seven hundred gallons of milk per annum, has been stated by Prof. 

 Way to be as much as can be replaced by from forty to fifty pounds 

 of bone dust; and it may well be believed that a demand such as 

 this would be seriously felt in a course of years. 



I am not aware that the deficiency of phosphates in the soil has 

 caused much suffering in Maine from the " bone disease," which 

 is caused by a greater demand for bone forming material than the 

 food supplies, but it has been occasionally seen here, and it is un- 

 derstood to have become a pretty serious evil in some parts of New 

 Hampshire. In such case, as the food does not furnish a supply, 

 the bones of the animal itself suffer, earthy matter is absorbed from 

 them, they become soft and yielding, and the poor creature is with 



