Dairy Farming in Canada. 477 



In some plants the farmer wants a large root and large stem 

 and large leaf, and in others he wants only the seeds — the other 

 parts being an unimportant and secondary consideration. An 

 abundance of plant food, an excess of it if you will, early in the 

 life of the plant, makes for the growth of roots, and stem, and 

 leaves ; and then after the plant is about full size, some difficulty 

 in getting more of it, makes for the growth of seeds. If a man 

 wants large turnips let him pile on the manure. You never saw 

 too much manure on a turnip field, for the size of the turnips. 

 That is quite unlike the bunch of oats on the dung hill. Then you 

 never saw a hayfield over manured, so far as the growth is con- 

 cerned. In the hay you want the stem and leaf, and in the turnip, 

 and mangel, and carrot you want the root ; therefore manuring is 

 the right thing for them. Beside their period of growth and 

 accumulation extends many weeks after the period of collection 

 by ripening cereals has ended, and that at a time when the farm- 

 yard manure applied that season is most readily available, and 

 when nitrification in the soil is most active. 



There is a fundamental principle to guide in making a rotation 

 of crops : apply manure for green crops and hay, and follow these 

 by cereals sown in soil having a very fine tilth, since for them there 

 is only a short growing season. That the early first part of it 

 should be favorable is most important for the yield of grain. 



Application of farmyard manure directly for grain crops is 

 often a wasteful practice, but put on for root or other green crops 

 it puts and leaves the soil in the best condition for grain crops to 

 follow. I do not contend for sowing grain on poor land, but for 

 putting manure on for green crops and for grass and for hay, 

 which take all the nourishment they require, and leave enough, 

 and that in the best condition, for the growth of the succeeding 

 crop of grain. 



Seed Grain. 



I have spoken of the availability of plant food in the soil, and 

 the making of it more so by cultivation and a rotation of crops. 

 I want to speak also of the power of the plant to take these things 

 out of the soil and the air — the inherited power of the plant. 

 A plant has inherited its initial vital power from all the crops 

 through which it came — all the ancestors through which it 

 ascended or descended. An appreciation of the inherited as well 

 as the acquired power of plants will be of assistance in selecting 

 the kind of seed that will do best on each farmer's land. What I 



