FERTILITY OF SOIL. 127 



steadily back, and if he raises potatoes long enough he will 

 find they will cost him one dollar and fifty cents a bushel. I 

 think if the farmers hereabouts would qo to raisino- stock 

 beef, sheep, &c., they would do w^ell. You have the hay 

 and feed. You ought to, and I believe you can, raise two 

 oxen to our one ; two pounds of butter can be made here to 

 our one ; two pounds of cheese to our one ; two pounds of 

 wool can be produced to our one, and by so doing, and less 

 exhaustive cropping, you can keep the soil W'here it is. 



Mr. TowNSEND, Aroostook. I think it is well enoush to 

 crop with potatoes for the first or perhaps the second time 

 after clearing the land, although I have no doubt that after 

 the stumps have become rotten you could get a good crop of 

 potatoes, or nearly as good as before. Some seasons we can 

 raise more grain and more potatoes than we did the year 

 before, and then the next year perhaps less, and the next 

 more. It is not owing to the soil, but the season. But I 

 believe that the raising of potatoes year after year will cer- 

 tainly exhaust the soil. But in taking one crop of potatoes 

 we take it as profitable as we take any crop that we raise. 



Mr. Leland. I think that those who have suiveyed the 

 State of Maine, teach us that the soil in Aroostook county is 

 diflerent from the soil in any other part of the State, but that 

 this soil cannot be exhausted is probably incorrect. This 

 same theory was held by the early pioneers. They believed 

 that the stubble plowed into the soil would return as much 

 to the soil as the crop took out. That was of course an 

 error, as they found in time. I have been looking through 

 your starch factories, and have seen the large amount of 

 fertilizing element which goes to waste. Is it not possible 

 for this waste element to be saved and used as a fertilizer? 

 I feel sure of one thing, if you do not keep your soil in its 

 present condition you are lo blame. You can do it, and I 

 think if you continue to take off your crop with the expecta- 

 tion that your land will retain its strength and productive- 

 ness, with no return of manures, &c., you will be greatly in 



