110 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Plants must have food. Vegetation annually appropriates 

 to itself, and removes from the soil, a portion of the nutritive 

 principles therein contained, and if they be removed without 

 compensation in some way, barrenness will ensue. 



Upon the facilities Avhich the farmer may be able to command 

 to secure an adequate supply of food for his crops, his success 

 must in a great measure depend. 



Manure is a term of broad application. It was formerly con- 

 fined chiefly to the excrements of animals, but now has a wider 

 signification, and may be understood as embracing any animal, 

 vegetable or mineral matter capable of improving and fertilizing 

 the soil, or of correcting its faults and supplying its defects. 

 Whether artificial fertilizers may or may not be profitably em- 

 ployed, is of far less moment for us to understand, than how to 

 make the most of home resources ; the true policy being to 

 increase the productiveness of the farm from within itself To 

 accomplish this, every source of fertilizing material upon the 

 farm should be made to contribute, and care should be taken, that 

 nothing be wasted. Not only should the solid excrements of ani- 

 mals, which too often is the sole dcpcndance of the farmer, be 

 properly cared for, but special efforts should be directed to the 

 liquid also, which are not only more exposed to waste, but possess 

 a superiority over the other, which renders their loss irreparable. 

 An eminent agricultural writer says : "When it is considered that 

 with every pound of ammonia that escapes, a loss of sixty pounds 

 of corn is sustained, and that with every pound of urine a pound 

 of wheat might be produced, the indifference with which these 

 liquid excrements are regarded is quite incomprehensible." An- 

 other says : "The quantity of liquid manure produced by one cow 

 annually, is equal to fertilizing an acre and a quarter of ground, 

 producing effects as durable as do the solid evacuations. A cord 

 of loam, saturated with urine, is equal to a cord of the best 

 dung. If the liquid and solid evacuations, including the litter, 

 are kept separate, and soaking up the liquid by loam, it has 

 been found that they will manure land, in proportion by bulk, of 

 seven liquid to six solid, while their actual value is as two to 

 one. One hundred pounds of cow's urine afford twenty-five 

 pounds of the most powerful salts which have ever been used 

 by farmers. The simple statement, then, in figures, of the dif- 



