FAEMERS' INSTITUTES. 171 



suggest the manner by which its present capabilities could probably be relatively 

 ascertained : 



There is, perhaps, on every farm, some portion of it -which has never yet been 

 desecrated by the plow. These will be found existing along the lines of our 

 fences or roadsides, which would represent the original condition of the soil. 

 TVe could then dig up a section of this virgin soil to a specified depth, and in 

 the same manner obtain a portion which had been cultivated. Then, by con- 

 stituting this uncultivated soil as the representative of its par value, and by sub- 

 jecting each to a separate chemical analysis and comparing results, we should 

 probably be able to ascertain how much it had lost in its capabilities, or how 

 much below par the condition of this cultivated portion would disclose. Is it 

 not reasonable to suppose that some such method will be practiced, by which 

 any one Avho may wish to assume the proprietorship of some real estate cropped 

 under our present system for some indefinite period, may have a more certain 

 guide in fixing values? 



There are no doubt a class of light soils which present a condition of ex- 

 haustion resulting from a deficiency of organic matter which it lacks for the 

 proper development of the organisms of plants, and which when again supplied 

 will grow good crops. This will explain the beneficial effects of plowing under 

 a crop of clover, Avhich will furnish this class of plant food more cheaply and 

 effectively than can be obtained from any other source, and by its admirable 

 adaptation to collect from the subsoil, by its penetrating tap roots, the ash con- 

 stituents for the crop which succeeds it. But we must bear in mind that we 

 harvest these last in this crop, and if it is sold from the farm that is the end of 

 them so far as they concern us. AVe should not, therefore, accept this condi- 

 tion of apparent fertihty as being real which follows green manuring, but 

 should regard its action more as the effects of stimulation. We should expect 

 that in most soils where this crop was grown for a long time for such purjDOses 

 that a species of reaction would ensue as a consequence, by exhausting the sol- 

 uble ash constituents of the subsoil, ^^'e cannot understand how any agent 

 which does not furnish to the soil an excess of all the elements of plant-food 

 which a particular crop requires, and at the same time leave the soil perma- 

 nently any better. This is what the advocates of green mamiring claim for 

 clover, — in fact they regard it as the universal panacea for all the ills to which 

 agriculture is lial^le. We think that this erroneous belief in its capabilities for 

 supplying fertility to an exhausted soil has exerted a very deleterious influence, 

 by retarding true agricultural progress, because it has superseded in their minds 

 the necessity of using any more efficient agent as a fertilizer. But when they 

 can be brought to comprehend that where this system of green manuring is 

 exclusively practiced, that they will exhaust this gold basis of crop growth more 

 rapidly than they otherwise could, that they will then be brought into a better 

 condition to realize the absolute necessity of exercising more economy in its use 

 and become more anxious to practice more efficient means for its preservation. 



It requires no great amount of observation and discernment to note the infal- 

 lible signs of failing capabilities in those soils which have been cultivated since 

 they were redeemed from an unbroken solitude by the first pioneers. The 

 wheat crop is the one first to feel the effects of this poverty of nature, and which 

 requires perhajis the largest per cent of this elixir of plant life, and which con- 

 stitutes it the staff of life when eaten as food, ^\e have been a close observer 

 of this particular crop for a number of years, and have noticed a very marked 

 difference in its appearance when growing on those soils just mentioned and 



