EXHAUSTION FOLLOWS MISMANAGEMENT. 251 



superior to all the powers of Nature to make it out of the 

 raw soil ; and, if we remove the crops, there will every year 

 be a diminution of the store or the quantity which Nature 

 by her efforts had laid up for the use of plants. 



Now, gentlemen, I am one of those who believe — and I 

 dare state what I believe — that we have no soil in America 

 that is stored so full of plant-food, that we have not here a 

 climate which will develop out of the soil plant-food so fast, 

 that constant culture and removal will not reduce it to steril- 

 ity, I do not believe that our American soils, rich as they 

 were originally, and of which we boast as being soils of ex- 

 haustless fertility, and of which we boast that we can feed 

 the world by our crops, — I do not believe that we have any 

 such soils. Your river-bottoms, that grow crops continually, 

 are yearly manured, and therefore are not included in this 

 case. But I say we have no soils from which we can take 

 crops year by year without reducing them to sterility, for 

 the very reason that has been stated, — the plant feeds faster 

 than Nature can make food for it. I know, gentlemen, you 

 will think of England. I know you will think of that 

 wonderful series of experiments of Messrs. Laws and Gilbert, 

 where they tell us, that, for thirty successive years, their land 

 has borne wheat, fourteen or sixteen bushels to the acre, on 

 an average, without any diminution (and that is a paying 

 crop) ; where they tell us that those lands for thirt}' odd years, 

 without any manure, have borne them two tons and a half of 

 hay to the acre, and for thirty odd years twenty bushels of 

 barley to the acre. But I tell you those soils are not on this 

 side of the Atlantic ; and if that is the kind of soil they have 

 in England, then I tell you the agricultural science of Eng- 

 land is worth nothing to you or me. Our American soil and 

 climate require an American science of agriculture. England 

 can teach us nothing, if that is a sample of English soil. 



Mr. WhitakePv. That is not a sample of English soil. 



Professor Stockbeidge. I tell you that the science of 

 agriculture in America is 3'et to be written. In my judgment, 

 we have not any. Why ? Because we have not any facts. 

 Where are the men to-day who are gathering the facts of 

 American agriculture by thorough, tireless, exhaustive ex- 

 periments? Nowhere. Let me tell you, gentlemen of the 

 Board of Agriculture, you never, in my judgment, will have 



