FARMING FOR SUCCESS. 95 



interests the proposed scheme of farming, is not. only that there is 

 an immense supply of the elements of plant food in the soil in part 

 in insoluble compounds, that are gradually becoming soluble, l)ut 

 especially that by tillage we hasten the process by increasing the 

 action of frosts and the circulation in the soil of oxygen and car- 

 bonic acid, the two chemical agents specially active under favorable 

 conditions in soil decomposition. 



Tillage is manuring. The increased tillage proposed will coax 

 from the soil more plant food than it will yield by present processes, 

 and alone will prove sufficient to increase our crops from fifteen to 

 twenty per cent. That grand old Roman farmer, Cato, placed tillage 

 of more importance than manuring. In fable, we find two brothers 

 digging a farm completely over in search of a bag of gold onl}^ to 

 find it in increased crops. The fanaous Jethro TuU and his disciple, 

 the Rev. S. Smith, proclaimed tillage alone a sufficient source of 

 plant nutritives, and for themselves, on their soils, succeeded well. 

 The world, however, only accepts tillage as one of the sources and 

 the cheapest source of fertility. The laws that underlie tillage we 

 cannot stop to discuss. It exerts an influence on temperature and 

 moisture of soil, and should be adapted to soils and seasons in so 

 far as it may in practice. Tillage fits the soil also for the proper 

 germination of plants and their excursion of roots for foods. While 

 it fines the soil it also fines and distributes the manure in that area 

 of soil where the roots must delight to grow, if properly conducted. 

 While good tillage is one of the essentials for success in the present 

 sj-stem of farming, and now sadly deficient in practice, 3-et I wish 

 only to make the point that increased tillage is nursing our own soils 

 to an increased extent for a part of the large stores of plant food 

 they contain. 



Rotation of Crops. 



More crops can be gi-own on a given area under a system of rota- 

 tion of crops than under a succession of like crops. This assertion 

 is borne out by the experience of old countries for long periods. 

 Practice asserts it, science corroborates it and exact experiments 

 prove it. Here again, everything else remaining the same, New 

 England farmers can, by introducing a system of rational crop 

 succession, quite materially increase their total crop production. 

 Suppose ten tons of good English hay to be fed over a good barn 

 cellar to growing steers, then we should produce about twenty tons 



