MAINE STATE SOCIETY. 53 



sowing of the seed is sufficient to insure a hcaltlij harvest. The 

 soil possesses a spontaneous nutriment amply able to sustain 

 the first crops. And this method will obtain just so long as 

 the soil continues unexhausted. In some countries from nat- 

 ural causes, it never loses its inherent worth, and all adventi- 

 tious assistance is unnecessary. The farmers who live on the 

 banks of the Volga, finding their manure a useless burden, carry 

 it out upon the stream in winter to be floated down to the Cas- 

 pian, in early spring. But we, who live in this country, and 

 especially in this portion of the country, experience no such 

 difficulties. The time, under ordinary circumstances, will come 

 when a new treatment is demanded. And he who can best 

 ascertain what that treatment is, and can most advantageously 

 avail himself of it, is thenceforward the best farmer. How 

 then shall he ascertain what that treatment should be ? 



Not certainly, by assuming that agriculture is not an adven- 

 turous and a progressive art ; not certainly, by relying with the 

 utmost confidence on the wisdom of our fathers, deeming them 

 to have attained the maximum of all agricultural information 

 and success ; not certainly, by having an unhesitating recourse 

 to imitation and conjecture. But, on the other hand, most cer- 

 tainly by ascertaining whatsis the present character of the soil,. 

 — what treatment is best adapted to its requisitions, — what it 

 has lost that deprives it of its former excellence, — and what 

 will restore it to its original state, or advance it to a .still higher 

 grade. And this is by no means an impossible task. The 

 practically scientific man is well aware that " science can analyze 

 the wants of a plant or grain, as well as the components of a 

 soil, and declare what the one demands and the other should 

 yield. He thus knows at once what crops he must put upon 

 the soil, or what soil he must bring to the crops. This enables 

 him to husband, as" well as create or combine, his manures, and 

 rightly to manage their application. It directs his labors to 

 the most economical results, and leads him to deal with his 

 exhausted land, as the skillful physician does with his sick 

 patient. He neither guesses at the disease nor applies the reme- 

 dies at random."* This equally every farmer should know, and 



* See Address on the " Agricultural Progress in Massachusetts for the last Half 

 Century," by Charles Theo. Russell. 



