170 STATE BOAED OF AGEICULTUEE. 



that our gold and t^ilvcr coin does to our greenbacks. This paper money would 

 bo comparatively worthless without this coin basis, nor would this organic plant- 

 food be of any available ittility in the absence of this mineral basis. We can 

 also inflate our crops upon the same principle that Ave can our greenback cur- 

 reucv. This is done when we furnish to the soil an excess of this organic mat- 

 ter which will develop the organs of plants bej'ond all projwrtion to their pow- 

 ers of eliminating a corresponding proportion of the ash constituents, or this 

 gold basis of plant-food from the soil. 



AVe shall experience great difficulty in supplying the loss of these ash con- 

 stituents occasioned by selling our crops of grain from the farm, because our 

 system of farming has heretofore contemplated no effectual measures looking 

 to their preservation, nor do we possess the required facilities for furnishing an 

 adequate sujiply whilst practicing our present system. It has and does still 

 principally consist in this simple routine of plowing, sowing, and reaping. 

 Does it require no higher qualifications than Avliat will suffice to perform credit- 

 ably this labor to constitute any man a first-class farmer? "We must say that 

 we have learned to appreciate its jUst requirements more highly than this. 

 These very moderate qualifications remind us of those possessed by the pioneer 

 schoolmaster of a half century ago, which could be expressed and spelled by 

 the three Es. Does our average farming present no higher claim for progress 

 than this unsavory comparison Avould show? We have certainly tried to take a 

 more flattering view of its present condition, but aside from a better adajitation 

 and a vastly greater number of improved labor-saving machinery and imple- 

 ments, admitting of a more thorough and extended culture, cannot see any 

 very material improvement in any other resjiect. But there are some mitigating 

 circumstances which would tend to relieve somewhat the weight of odium which 

 this condition of progress would seem to indicate. This country has only been 

 under cultivation during a comparatively short period. At its commencement 

 the soil was new and rich in all of those elements of plant-food, and all that 

 was then really necessarily required to raise large crops of grain was this routine. 

 But its long practice has developed a species of conservatism in the habits and 

 practices of the farmer which has caused him to adhere to them long after he 

 has skimmed the cream from his soil. We are now just commencing to realize 

 that our system of culture consists in stirring up the blue skimmed milk. So 

 long as we were able to raise large crops, the necessity for inquiring whether this 

 condition would probably always continue was not immediately pressing ; bitt 

 when our present crops, grown on the same soils, in favorable seasons scarcely 

 come up to the general average of years ago, and in unfavorable ones not more 

 than half so much, then we are ready and willing to stop and inquire how this 

 undesirable condition could be remedied. It is certainly a very proper time to 

 do so, inasmuch as we did not earlier. But it is much on the same principle that 

 it is better late than not at all. 



It might be of interest to inquire if, during all of these years, we have been 

 living from the capital stock contained in our farms, to the extent, at least, of 

 their ash constituents used, how much less are the}' worth to-day for jiurposes 

 of agriculture than when we commenced? Or, rather, how much more would 

 they be worth now, with all of their present external advantages, supposing tliat 

 we could, by some sleight-of-hand performance, restore them back to their 

 original condition of fertility? It is quite probable that science is competent to 

 solve this quer}", or at least make an approach to it. We would respectfully 



