126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fertility by constantly patting back on to the soil fertilizing 

 elements. I do not think the farmers of this county have a 

 right to thus impoverish their farms as they have in western 

 counties. 



Dr. Lincoln. I have the misfortune to live on an old 

 farm which has been cultivated, I think, sixty or seventy 

 years. I am trying to bring it np to a higher state of culti- 

 vation. My rule is to put on more than twice what I take 

 off. I live in a region where I can get seaweed, and I put 

 on about forty or fifty loads of that and muscle-muck, and 

 fish pomace I feed to the cattle and sheep. I save all the 

 liquid manure. I was in your starch factory, to-day, and saw 

 the immense amount of fertilizing element that goes to waste. 

 I think you will find some day that the cultivation of potatoes 

 will certainly exhaust your soil. If 30U put back on your 

 land as much as you take off it will continue in a state of 

 fertility, l)ut if you do not, it will surely become exhausted. 



Mr. Faeeington. I do not see how you can return, 

 strictly speaking, all you take from your land. You have 

 growing flocks which you sell ; how are you going to return 

 all they have taken ofl' ? You cannot do it. You may rely 

 somewhat on the natural fertility of your soil, but you must 

 not drain youv farms too heavily. 



Mr. IvEYES. I have been brought up on a farm, and 

 always lived on one, and I dread to see the soils here become 

 as our soils are in the western portions of the State. It does 

 seem to me as though you would in time see the folly of 

 raising so many potatoes to go out of the countr3% Brother 

 Parker has just said he believed the soil to be as near inex- 

 haustible as could be, but it seems to me that those gentlemen 

 who have moved from the western part of the State would 

 be pretty confident, judging from our lands that wa}', that 

 there is danger of exhausting your soil here. One gentleman 

 said, this afternoon, he could raise potatoes for twelve and a 

 half cents per bushel. I hardly see how the gentleman can 

 tell ; he does not know what it takes out of his soil. While 

 he is growing his potatoes year after year, his soil is going 



