THE CULTURE OF CORN. 83 



in precisely the same manner as a farmer's field that has been 

 worked without adequate manure for years is exhausted, — 

 starved, in fact, for want of sustenance. Tlie soil itself is 

 inexhaustible. A poor field that would not produce ten 

 bushels of corn per acre has the capacity to produce one 

 hundred bushels per acre if it is brought out by adequate 

 feeding with precisely the elements that are needed. When 

 farmers begin to treat their fields as animals, to be fed with 

 the precise food that is required, then, and not until then, 

 will they begin to realize that their soil is as inexhaustible as 

 it is irremovable, and that, so long as the soil remains, it can 

 be made to produce crops. Were it otherwise, what a pros- 

 pect for the human race, after a few generations should have 

 made the earth sterile ! This fact being, then, admitted, 

 farmers can learn from agricultural chemistry in a short 

 time, through the investigations of chemists, more than they 

 could hope to know after a lifetime of field-work in the 

 dark, and therefore should by no means despise this most 

 valuable aid. 



The chemist discovers for us that the soil that has been 

 long cultivated is deficient in three important elements in 

 plant-growth, — phosphoric acid, nitrogen, and potash ; also, 

 that the different crops, while they all require these ele- 

 ments, need them in varying amounts and proportions ; and, 

 further, that some plants (clover, pease, and other leguminous 

 crops) have a capability of drawing from some source — the 

 soil directly, we know, but whether from the atmosphere or 

 from what other source indirectly, we do not know — nearly 

 all the nitrogen they require, however much that may be. 

 This is a most important fact, and shows how much we are 

 indebted to the chemist for this knowledge, which we could 

 never have learned without him ; for nitrogen is the most 

 scarce and costly ingredient of manures and fertilizers. A 

 whole ton of barnyard manure contains only ten pounds of 

 it, and that in a condition in which it cannot wholly be used 

 and made available for several years ; while, in a soluble and 

 available condition in artificial fertilizers, it costs about 

 twenty-five cents a pound: and, but for this knowledge of 

 the chemist, we might be year after year applying this costly 

 element to the soil when it would be unnecessary. There- 

 fore, knowing this fact, we can easily see that we can grow 



