78 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Theory may assist in determining by way of suggestion, but 

 theory alone cannot dictate -with confidence, nntil we are sure that 

 it is in all respects correct. No theory yet broached has been able 

 fnlly to account for, and explain, all the well ascertained results of 

 experience on this point. Many and various are the theories which 

 liave from time to time been promulgated to explain the known facts 

 attending rotation. The earliest in point of date was, that the land 

 got ^w-ec/ of producing any particular crop, and required rest or change 

 of employment, which is perfectly absurd, for soil is not a being pos- 

 sessed of a nervous system, or of organs of any kind, or capable of 

 fiitigue, or of recovery from fatigue by rest. To be sure, we some- 

 times speak in a loose way of driving, forcing, or stimulating the 

 soil, but such expressions are all wrong, and should be carefully 

 avoided, if only for the reason that incorrect language often leads, 

 even unconsciously, to incorrect belief, and incorrect belief leads to 

 incorrect practice.* Our land should be looked upon rather as a 

 reservoir, or a deposit cf plant food, of materials or elements, such 

 as plants, (which are organized bodies,) take up, feed upon and 

 assimilate to themselves, and so are enabled to increase in growth 

 and ripen seed. If the soil does not contain all which the plants 

 need, we add manure, and manure is only food for plants, and what- 

 ever contains food for plants may properly be called manure, whether 

 it be dung or gypsum, urine or ashes, leaves or guano. If we add 

 to our soil just what food is required by the crop which the soil 



* We can stimulate growth by furnishing the needful elements of fertility which 

 may be lacking; and sometimes in this way, where little is wanting, and the want 

 of that little is imperative, a slight application of the right kind will result in great 

 yield; but to say that the sot7 is stirauhxted thereby is no more true than that a 

 decanter is stimulated by putting brandy in it. 



Not unfrequently cases like the following (which was related by a member of the 

 Board, at one of its informal evening meetings last winter,) occur: A certain man 

 applied to a piece of land so poor as to yield less than five hundred pounds of hay 

 per acre, a dressing of muscle bed. The next year, he cut tliree tons per acre; the 

 second year, nearly as much; the third, rather less; the fourth, less still; and the 

 fifth, scarcely any. lie then applied muscle bed again, but it produced no effect. 

 He then tried a few loads of barn yard manure, which did but little good; his soil 

 appeared to be hopelessly barren, and he cursed the muscle bed for driving his 

 land to death. Now let us look into tliis a bit. AVithiii four years after the first 

 application, he had removed from the land thirty or forty times as much hay as he 

 could get in a year previous to it. Where did all this come from ? What furnished 



