72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



more done to maintain its fertility, than any other part of the farm. 

 If we cannot attain to that point here, let us approximate to it. 

 When we have learned the farmer to prize his pasture land, we 

 are prepared to go a step further, and, taking these pastures as 

 they are, see if we can find a way to improve them. The pasture 

 lands of New England were once among the richest lands in the 

 country. They were once fertile, they are now sterile. In tracing 

 the process from fertility to sterility, we ought to find out what 

 we must do to bring about a return to the state of fertility. Now 

 let us trace the process through from the top downward. 



The time was when this pasture land was covered with wood. 

 The soil was rich with the accumulation of leaf mould. The farmers 

 unwisely swept off these forests as with the besom of destruction. 

 When they did, that they took the surest course to destroy the 

 agricultural prosperity of the country. They were destroying 

 the climate. The forests were needed to protect alike from flood 

 and from drought. When the forests were destroyed they next 

 did the surest thing to destroy the soil itself. When they burned 

 the refuse wood and timber, they burned not only that, but the top 

 soil itself to ashes. They destroyed all that material which should 

 have developed nitrogen, and that which gave the soil its power 

 to absorb and retain water when they thus burned up this organic 

 matter. Then there was only left a rich mineral soil. The ashes 

 gave it fertility for a time. But if you destroy its absorbing 

 power no soil can long retain its fertility. For a short time the 

 wood ashes gave a slight absorbent power. The land brought 

 into pasture yielded abundantly for a series'of years. Then nitro- 

 gen failed to be developed in the soil, and that is an element 

 essential to the production of flesh and milk. 



Now for the next step downward. A large part of the pasture 

 land of New England is hillsides. These are subject to tre- 

 mendous freshets. The organic matter having been destroyed by 

 burning, there is nothing to hold the mineral matter, and it is 

 watched away, down into the brooks and rivers. Here then we 

 have another cause of the deterioration of the pastures. 



The next cause is that you have put animals on your pasture 

 land, and during a series of years you have built animal carcasses 

 out of the soil. Now a word or two about this. If I grow an 

 animal J'rom the products of my soil I have constructed an^ animal 

 structure out of the soil of my field. For every full grown ox you 

 raise you have taken from the eoil 130 lbs. of phosphate of lime 



