126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tilizers work in two ways : first, by directly feeding the plant, 

 and, secondly, by putting the soil into such a condition that it 

 can present to the plant, from itself, the food which it wants ; 

 in the latter case, working partly chemically and partly mechan- 

 ically. I have no doubt about that. In the first class, I would 

 put all those active manures that manifestly provide the soil 

 with plant-food, as it is called, and at the head of this list I 

 would put barnyard manure. You may go where you will, 

 you may go to South Carolina, you may go to Germany, you 

 may go to the Guano Islands, or you may go into any chemical 

 laboratory in this country, the best thing, the last thing, and 

 the fundamental thing, after all, is barnyard manure, and 

 enough of it, to make a farm shine. 



Now, it is a curious fact, that this barnyard manure answers 

 both the purposes of which I have spoken. In the first place, 

 it supplies the plant with food, — what we call the pabulum: 

 what it is, I do not know. It is that which goes to make up 

 bulk ; that which, in a good slice of roast beef, goes to make a 

 man feel full ; and it is not nutritive, either. It is that which 

 carries with it the fertilizing property, and makes a shovelful 

 of fertilizing material a good deal better for the plant than a 

 thimble-full. Now, I think that barnyard manure contains 

 that in the best possible form in which you can put it, and that 

 of itself, acting mechanically and somewhat chemically upon 

 the soil, enables the plant to secure its food readily. Then it 

 has another property. Dr. Nichols talked about nitrogenous 

 manures this morning. They are the most stimulating manures 

 we get, and while they act immediately upon the plant itself, 

 they also act upon the soil in such a way as to compel a barren 

 and impoverished soil to wake up and go about its business ; 

 so that those manures that are especially nitrogenous exhaust 

 the soil. Exhaust it, why ? Simply and solely because they 

 compel the soil to work beyond its natural strength, so that the 

 soil is exhausted after it has got through with that business. 

 Hence there is a tradition somewhere, I forget where, that the 

 farmers put fish manure upon their land until the land was 

 worn out. It was the nitrogen that literally forced the soil into 

 such a condition that when it got through, it was tired to death ; 

 it was like a man with an extra glass of rum. Give him the 

 glass of rum and he will work like lightning ; but when it is all 



