82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



products of the farm, the greater ^vill be the means of the farmer 

 to enrich his lands. If he consume his crops at home, as he should 

 always do to large extent, he has an annual supply of manure at 

 hand. If he sell them, he can Avell afford to purchase enough of 

 fertilizing materials to make good to the soil the deficiency occasioned 

 by cropping. As we have before seen, plants derive a portion of 

 their subsistence from the atmosphere. Their roots are constantly at 

 work decomposing, rendering soluble, and appropriating portions of 

 soil before unavailable; so that if due heed be given to returning 

 Avhat manure the crops will yield, our lands may be forever gaining 

 in fertility. 



In speaking of manures a few pages back, reference was made to 

 the great waste now existing in the State, as testified to by many of 

 our best farmers in the report of last year, and of the immense gain 

 which would result from simply saving what is now needlessly lost. 

 But supposing all this fully accomplished, to-day, would the limit 

 of improvement be reached ? By no means : for we have in our 

 soil capabilities which have never yet been called into action, and 

 which nev^r will be and never can be until drawn upon in such a 

 way that nature can honor the draft without violation of her unal- 

 terable laws, and this can only be done by a judicious rotation of 

 crops. 



With the hope of obtaining some valuable results from the expe- 

 rience of our best farmers as to the most judicious rotations to 

 adopt, so far as proved upon our soils, some questions of the circular 

 were directed to this end, but I regret to say that little has been 

 elicited. From some sources, whence satisfactory replies w^ere looked 

 for with most confidence, the following answers, or similar ones, are 

 received: "I do not know." "Am not prepared to express an 

 0] inion." "That is just what we need most to know," &c. In 

 other instances, the prevailing practice is stated without any ex- 

 pression of opinion as to its merits or faults, as thus : 



"Pretty gencrnlly corn or potatoes is planted on greensward, 

 turned over in fall or spring, with manure the first year, and the 

 next, it is stocked down with wheat, barley or oats, to 'remain as 

 permanent mowing until it no longer pays for getting. Tliis is 

 sometimes varied by taking a previous crop of oats, sometimes by 

 planting two years in succession." 



