PLANT NUTRITION. 3J 



you make crops? What has the weather to do with it? The 

 answer to this question is very simple. It is this. You have 

 given to your land the material, you say, to produce plants. You 

 gave it in a raw, crude, un fermented state. Now no plant ever 

 did or ever can feed on barn-yard manure as barn-yard manure. 

 I don't care how rich your soil may be, the plant may stand there 

 and starve there unless the weather comes in and produces food 

 for it. The weather then has this to do with it. You fed your 

 plants with barn-yard manure, and there wasn't an atom of food 

 in it. Nature comes in with her sunshine and rain, the manure 

 passes through certain changes, is dissolved, its parts are chemi- 

 cally united, and thus food is produced, and the plant is able to 

 take it. 



The weather then makes your crop large or small accordingly 

 as it is favorable or unfavorable to the decomposition of the ma- 

 terial for plant food in the soil. AVhen we have one of those cold 

 seasons, so that the air cannot get into the soil with its oxygen, 

 or the sun penetrate it with its heat, it is dormant so far as de- 

 composition is concerned, and we have the plants waiting for the 

 sun and air to develop food. Suppose it is the other way — there 

 is no water ; then the plants stand and wait for water to develop 

 the food that is in the soil. They wait there until decomposition 

 takes place, and then they get their food. That is all that nature 

 has to do with it. This is a good corn year ; last year was a bad 

 one. What is the difference ? A little too much water, or not 

 quite water enough, and the food wasn't developed. 



Now, gentlemen, if you will prepare your food before you put 

 it in your ground, if you will take j'our crude manure and make 

 it into absolute plant food, suppose you take the chemical ele- 

 ments that are absolute plant food, do you believe these ordinary* 

 variations will affect your crops? You may think so, but I know 

 they will not. If you give the plant its food in proper variety 

 the plant will grow without being affected by the ordinary varia- 

 tions of the seasons. Then your crops will not be controlled by 

 the weather — they will not be controlled by anybody but your- 

 self; and if you have done your duty intelligently they will hardly 

 vary from year to year or from generation to generation. 



Now I have drawn these pictures on the one side and the other, 

 have stated what I believe to be the true method of feeding 

 plants examined from a scientific stand-point, and I have stated 



