38 [Senate 



encouragement from the past, we look with increased confidence to 

 the future. 



As a proof of the efficacy of applying to plants food in a condensed 

 form, the subject of steeping grain before planting or sowing, is now 

 highly recommended, although heretofore it was only occasionally 

 thought of and practiced. From recent communications made on that 

 subject by Mr. Colman, in the last number of his Agricultural Tour, 

 it appears that repeated experiments of steeping seeds have been made 

 in England with eminent success, and that in all cases in which it had 

 been resorted to, it had a most wonderful effect on the growth of the 

 plant. He says — " the specimens of oats to which preparations of 

 sulphate of ammonia have been applied are magnificent, both as to 

 height and strength — ^being six feet high, and having stems like small 

 canes, with an average of ten stems from one seed, and one hundred 

 and sixty grains on each stem." It produced the same good efiects 

 on all the other grains, and the experiments were full and satisfactory. 



Gentlemen, if we can profit by these remarks, it is a cheap and 

 easy way of applying food to plants, and is one of the discoveries of 

 modern times. The great object of the farmer is to make his farm, 

 by judicious culture, more productive. He is now convinced that to 

 nurse his soil is his true policy ; that, as different crops exhaust more 

 or less of its capacity to produce, he must adopt the principle qf rota- 

 tion of crops, and not let two grain crops follow in succession. The 

 introduction of grasses, other than clover, is of modern practice, 

 and is found to be not only profitable as a crop, but most renovating 

 to the soil. Old meadows are now plowed up, and after a short 

 cultivation, again laid down to grass with the most happy effect. 

 Draining of land, too, is a modern improvement, and highly as wri- 

 ters speak of its effects in Europe, I see a commencement is made 

 in this country, and with most beneficial effects. I have observed that 

 many wet places in fields have been dried by it, and that unseemly 

 swamps and miry bogs have by it been turned into the most beautiful 

 and verdant meadows. 



Another subject is now, too, undergoing an investigation — and that 

 is a most important one. What crops successively are best adapted 

 to particular soils 1 This embraces a wide field of research, and will 

 receive quite as much benefit from the light of science as from the ob- 

 servations of the practical farmer. Comparing the variety and quality 

 of the plants we now cultivate with those in use but a few years ago 



