FAKMEES' INSTITUTES. 137 



for plant food the carbouic acid or fixed air must bo removed before it is made 

 soluble. 



The volatile alkali, ammonia, that transporting agent, carries up the neces- 

 sary element, the absorbent vessels take it, putting together two distinct prin- 

 ciples, and the result is a something distinct from either, — perhaps the next 

 combination is the product in the kernel of wheat. I give this overly condensed 

 view of one particular thing of the many connected with mixed husbandry, in 

 order to show that it behooves us to act intelligently for more than one con- 

 sideration. 



My ol)scrvation in rotation of crops I will give, and perhaps some present may 

 have had like experience. A field on the old homestead, noted for its good 

 properties of soil for wheat or any other crop, was seeded to clover. The next 

 season a heavy crop of clover hay was cut. The second growth was remarkably 

 heavy ; left for seed, but it lodged, held green, and was left uncut. The next 

 season it was turned under and planted to corn. Gave the best yield the farm 

 ever produced, — nearly 150 bushels jier acre. The next season was sown to 

 oats ; re.-ult a magnificent one. The same fall sown to wheat ; a very meager 

 yield followed, — say less than half when summer fallowed, and not so good in 

 qiuxlity. You may say that more profit was derived from the corn and oats, in 

 the rotation, than the loss in the wheat. Admit it ; but let me ask you what 

 were the consequences? The course in rotation was too drastic, and it has not 

 recuperated suflBciently in "several years now to give as good a return as 

 formerly. 



There is such a thing as forcing the ground, and we understand it better than 

 that favored people who were told not to do it. In the end there is a loss. 

 Nature is not precipitate, out-ide of her laws, in restoring, although we may 

 become co-workers with her. Here, again, we see the need of something more 

 than a practical course, — call it scientific. 



What elements were exhausted in that soil, that it refused to yield as for- 

 merly? Was it alkaline properties, nitrogenous substances, phosphates, or phos- 

 phites? There is a call for our understanding the working agents in nature 

 better than we do. A good mechanic understands the laws of mechanics ; let 

 us understand the science of farming. Whatever branch of mixed farming wo 

 choose to make a specialty of, properly conducted, involves the principles of sci- 

 entific farming, only in a more restricted sense, while mixed husbandry opens a 

 broader page of the book of nature, — gives us variety, — gives us a boundless 

 field for inquiry, always pleasing, not monotonous, but coincides or meets the 

 law of mind. 



Whatever of a special character vre undertake, something more than observa- 

 tion is now demanded. We may feed our horses, cattle, and swine injudiciously 

 for perfect development, and retrograde is surely written in legible characters 

 upon the structure. And so with the vegetable. In our great liberality we may 

 feed to excess and have a like experience. For example, I have a desire, as 

 many do, to perform something worthy of note ; select a piece of ground, put 

 on thirty or forty loads of manure per acre, give it good cultivation, sow it to 

 wheat. Everything is auspicious ; a luxuriant growth in the fall, opens well in 

 the spring ; at harvest time, straw enough for 60 bushels per acre ; thirty bushels 

 of wheat per acre, quality medium. Counted a success in dollars and cents. 

 Put that wheat to the test by analyzing its properties as compared with perfect 

 specimens, and we would be obliged to write retrograde on the top of success. 

 Evidently there is a deterioration in that wheat, — sufficiently so to preclude its 



