136 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



That is all the value there is in them. That is all we want of them. 

 It is the same with barn manures. What we want of barn manures 

 is to furnish nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash to the soil. 



Perhaps this conflicts with the ideas of some men, that it makes 

 a difference what you manure with. It doesn't make an}' difference 

 to the plant where it gets its nitrogen ; the plant is entirel}' in- 

 different as to the source from which it comes, it only wants it 

 within its reach ; it cares not whether it obtains it from barn manure 

 or from a commercial fertilizer ; it cares not whether it gets it from 

 the food 3'ou give 3'our animals or from porgie chum from the shore ; 

 it only wants its nitrogen. Just so with its phosphoric acid. It 

 makes no difference to the plant whether it obtains it from the void- 

 inffs of the stock, or from the dissolved bone which we obtain from 

 the commercial manure manufactory-. It must be supplied from 

 some source, and that is all that the plant cares about it. It is for 

 our benetit to determine which is the more economical source to 

 obtain it from. 



Our common course in supplying ourselves with manure, is to feed 

 our farm crops upon the farm and take the resulting manures to 

 supply the defects of the soil. In one sense we may say we feed 

 for the manure. 



If you watch careful!}' the introduction of husbandry into any 

 section, a'ou will see that on new lands the first system of farming 

 introduced everywhere is the system of crop production, for the pur- 

 pose of changing those crops into food for the family, or for sel- 

 ling them off in their natural form for their market price. That 

 is the system — crop production for crop selling — always and every- 

 where, in the first settlement of a new country. That is usually 

 carried on till the native store of plant food is somewhat exhausted, 

 and the gradual lessening of the crops begins to remind the owner 

 of the land thai he must give some attention to suppl3"ing the soil 

 with those materials which his crops have been drawing from it, and 

 which he has been transferring to the market without returning a 

 like amount of an}' kind back to the soil from whence it came. 

 When he begins to discover this condition of things, he begins at 

 once to look around and introduce stock husbandry in some form. 

 Stock husl)andi-y has now come, here among the farmers of the 

 State of Maine, to be considered as the basis of successful farming. 

 This is true in every community outside of Aroostook county, and 

 even there the same law is becoming accepted. Out of it comes 



