254 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



vile stuff of that kind, in whicli there is very little food of 

 any value, a short-horn and a mule. The short-horn starves ; 

 the mule fats. The short-horn cannot wring out of that 

 coarse herbacre the nutrition the mule can. It is the same 

 material in both cases ; but the vital power and force and en- 

 ergy, the digestive action, of the one animal, wrings from the 

 soil the nutrition fitted for both, and the short-horn starves. 

 It is precisely so with plants. Now, then, the Indian-corn 

 plant has a much larger root-expansion, has more vital force 

 and energy, than either the rye or the wheat, and will gather 

 out of that soil more of the elements of fertility; but a 

 more important reason is, because its root-expansion pumps 

 so much more water. The Indian-corn plant, as you know, 

 sucks up thirty-six times its own weight of water in its season 

 of growth, — largely more water than either wheat or rye ; 

 and this water from a larger area of soil, kept continually 

 passing over the particles of soil, and taking oif whatever 

 solvent material it has, is carried into and deposited in the 

 f)lant. Thus the Indian-corn plant can wring out of the 

 soil by its vital energy a greater quantity of water that it 

 causes to i)ass over the particles of soil than can the wheat 

 or rye plant, and become to you a paying crop. 



One step more, gentlemen, and I will relieve you. What 

 are you going to do about it ? Well, I am going to do this 

 about it. We have in Massachusetts thousands and thou- 

 sands of acres rich in the elements of plant-food. Neither 

 we nor all who are to come after us can exhaust them. 

 These old granite hills are rich in those materials of which 

 plants are made. Neither we nor our descendants will ever 

 be able to take them all out. The question is, How shall we 

 develop them with the least possible expense to us, and with 

 the greatest profit compared with the labor and ihe amount 

 of crop we shall harvest ? 



First, I should say. Let the land go back to Nature. Kindly 

 Nature will take care of it, and restore it to fertility ; but 

 we shall starve. We must grow crops that will make us 

 food : therefore we must cultivate and carry the crops away. 

 Now, then, I tell you, gentlemen of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture, that when we know what there is in the soil, when we 

 know what Nature is doing to develop it, and when we know 

 what the capacity of the plant is to Avring nutrition out of it, 



