250 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



This process goes on during all the season of growth: when 

 completed, then this plant, Avhich gathered up this inaterial 

 as formed, and deposited it for the time being, as it were, in 

 a reservoir within itself, dies, and carries it all back to the 

 soil; and thus generation after generation of plants, grow- 

 ing on the same land, annually gather up and deposit the 

 material, and annually carry it back to the soil ; and thus 

 the plant exerts its influence. In Nature's processes a plant 

 is always an enriching element. I will not stop to apply tliis, 

 gentlemen. Let me repeat it to make it strong. A plant on 

 the land, in Nature's processes,, is always an enriching ele- 

 ment, carrying back all it gathers from the soil, and carrying 

 with it that which it took from the air, which will exert sun- 

 dry influences, both physical and chemical, upon the earthy 

 materials of the soil itself. This process goes on, I say, year 

 after year; and here comes one of the wonders of creation. 

 This earth has been drenched and scored and scarred, for I 

 do not know how many tens of thousands of years, by falling 

 water. And if He who made the soil had not provided some 

 quality here, so that this material once prepared for the 

 plant should be retained, this earth to-day would have been 

 a scene of nought but desolation and sterility. 



Therefore this soil, with its various properties, was made 

 up in such a way, that when the action of the air and the 

 action of the plant combined had developed and stored away 

 in the plant large quantities of the proper material, and re- 

 turned it to the soil, there it should remain, not washed away 

 by the rain, not taken out of the soil and carried to the rivers 

 and to the sea, but stored up, year after year, so that our 

 soils become fertile, — simply magazines of proper plant-food, 

 enough not only for one crop, but for very many crops when 

 the circumstances of the case require us to gather plants and 

 remove them. And thus the plant in its natural growth 

 makes the soil richer year by year, so long as it may be 

 permitted to continue in that condition. But, gentlemen, 

 when man comes upon the scene, when he gathers plants 

 from the soil that have been thus built up out of itself, and 

 carries them away, there is an entire change of process. 

 Every crop of plants you take from the land will carry 

 away more material from the soil than is made by Nature 

 in the same time. The power of the plant to gather food is 



