MAKE FERTILITY THE RULE. 255 



sterility is an indication either of ignorance or of indolence ; 

 for we have no land in Massachusetts that would not, if man- 

 aged with proper intelligence, and worked with a willing 

 hand, return to us paying crops at a small cost of actual 

 labor. I would make Nature help in the work. I would 

 avail mj'self of every power and force that Nature exerts 

 upon the soil to aid me in making plant-food in the soil, 

 before I spend one dollar in the purchase of prepared plant- 

 food with which to dress my land ; and I would use plants as 

 the first aijcnt. 



I have said nothing about clover. From what I say about 

 Indian corn, you may imagine What I think of clover. I 

 would take first, then, as an example, Indian corn on this 

 land that will not bear more than fifteen bushels to the acre. 

 That is a paying crop on that kind of land, because it costs 

 nothing to till it. That crop I would harvest, carry it away, 

 and feed it judiciously, intelligently, to the animals in my 

 barn (and by "intelligently" I mean, to certain classes of 

 animals), and the refuse of that crop I would give back to 

 the land that produced it ; and I would repeat the process ; 

 and then I would add to it clover, one of the best forage 

 plants, and one of the best workers-up of the soil, that God 

 has ever given to man. I would repeat it, I say, with Indian 

 corn. I would then follow it with clover, spending the clover 

 on the farm, and returning the refuse of the crop to the land ; 

 and if judiciously expended, with the right kind of stock, 

 there would more material go back to the soil every year 

 than was developed by Nature's process out of the soil ; and 

 by following that process, using the plant, using water 

 wherever it can be obtained, we can make these lands bear 

 crops as of old. But if the exigencies of the times require, 

 if the markets of the country around us demand more, then, 

 most assuredly', the material which we apply to the land 

 must be the material which plants require, and in the very 

 form in which they require it ; and thus fertility will be the 

 rule, and sterility will be the exception. 



The Chaiuman. Gentlemen, the subject is now open. I 

 have no doubt the professor will bear cross-questioning, or 

 being questioned on any subject which he has not touched 

 upon, wliich may be interesting to gentlemen present. 



