216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a very imprudent and a very bold man to make this assertion be- 

 fore men learned in that business as these gentlemen are, and I 

 myself a mere novice. Although I was brought up a farmer, it 

 was on the old plan of carrying on farming — clearing the soil and 

 getting abundant crops for a few years. 



I believe that the elements are within our reach to enrich this 

 soil or any other soil. Look at the prairies of the West ! Such a 

 man raised 40,000 bushels of wheat, and the railroad facilities are 

 such that he got a great price for it. But look at the census. 

 How many bushels per acre did he get? Perhaps fifteen ; usually 

 not over fifteen, and from that down to twelve, ten, eight, seven 

 and a half. That man had 5500 acres under cultivation. Ah! 

 that is a poor country where a man has to cultivate 6500 acres to 

 live. He may live like a lord, with all the splendor of the ancient 

 English Baron, who had his hundreds of vassals, who were worse 

 off, perhaps, in many respects, than the former slaves of the 

 South. That is a poorer country for the world than this. It 

 ought not to take as many acres as that to support one family and 

 the retinue that usually attends a family here. 



The soil is enriched, ordinarily, by the return of vegetable mat- 

 ter to the earth. According to the present theories, I believe it is 

 understood that the growing plants absorb largely from the atmos- 

 phere ; that from the process of combustion and from marshes, and 

 from the decay of plants, a great deal of vegetable matter is 

 thrown off into the atmostphere, in the form of carbonic acid gas, 

 and the plants are fed in this way. What you want to do upon 

 any farm is to return to the soil, in the most economical manner, 

 all that comes from the soil and the atmosphere. From the atmos- 

 phere comes carbonic acid, in large quantities, and to a smaller 

 extent nitrogen, and other elements that are necessary. 



Now, gentleman, to retnrn a moment. The remark I make is 

 this, that if every farmer in the State of Maine would go' to work 

 this very fall and make a cellar under his barn, where his cattle 

 and horses are kept, make it tight by stone or cement, or even 

 hemlock plank, so that all the excrements that come from that 

 stock sliall be retained, and so that the urine shall be held with 

 the solid excrement, and a proper application of gypsum and any 

 other dry substance shall be made to these material from time to 

 time, — if every man who has five acres of land and a cow and a 

 horse, will make this experiment, we shall see more abundant 

 harvests than have ever been reaped in this State before. I have 



