18 BOARD OF AGRICULTU.vE. 



our fields is to be attributed, in great part, the entire absence 

 of profit in the cultivation of many of our crops. Now, if I 

 can convince every one here present of the mischievous char- 

 acter of weeds, of every kind, so that they will carry the plan 

 I shall suggest into effect hereafter, they will not only be will- 

 ing to pay me handsomly for my information, but consider it 

 more valuable than all the benefits they ever have or ever will 

 reap from agricultural societies or agricultural books. 



Now, Mr. President, if you disbelieve what I am al)Out to 

 say, just visit your neighbors' corn fields and potato fields about 

 the last of next August, just after they get through with their 

 haying, when every thing is pressing, and it is a question in 

 my mind whether you will not find weeds tliere sufficient to 

 destroy, in the long run, the net profits of all the farming 

 operations of the year. Let me say right here, for I know it 

 from experience, that you may bury the seeds of those weeds 

 and let the field lie uncultivated for ten or fifteen years, and 

 when you do cultivate it again, it will present a crop of weeds 

 more readily than anything you can place upon the soil ; 

 whereas, if you cultivate that ground thoroughly, and extermi- 

 nate every weed from it, you will not have them then or there- 

 after to mix with your hay or any other crop that may follow. 

 I have tried it. I had a large livery stable, and kept upon 

 the average about twenty horses, some ten or a dozen years. 

 I made one pledge when it came into my possession, that no 

 part of that manure should ever be appropriated to the raising 

 of weeds, and I can say that I have planted eight or ten acres 

 where I could carry under one arm every weed that grew upon 

 that land. I have been in the habit, also, of letting tene- 

 ments, and I have found my tenants exceedingly anxious to 

 get large gardens ; they will put an immense quantity of 

 manure upon them, and plant them with the nicest exactitude, 

 but if you go around by the side of those gardens in August, 

 you cannot tell what crop is upon any part of them, by reason 

 of the flourishing condition of the weeds. 



Dr. Baldwin. I consider that the seeds of weeds in the 

 soil, provided it is well worked, are high sources of fertility. 

 Not that they should be allowed to grow, Ijut if a soil is quick 



