APPLICATION OF MANURES. 129 



applied directly to the soil is a stimulant and a good thing to 

 use. When all these things have gone through the chemist's 

 laboratory, and have got into chemical combinations, I do not 

 believe that even Dr. Nichols will undertake to vouch for them. 

 These are the views I have in regard to fertilization. 



With regard to the application of manures, I am perfectly 

 sure that manure, when applied to the soil, should not only be 

 properly composted, — which means combined with other and 

 bulkier articles, — but that it should be properly decomposed. 

 It has got to rot before the plant can touch it. Remember that. 

 It is no use to talk about a plant growing upon the influence 

 of green manure, for when the plant begins to grow upon the 

 influence of that manure it is no longer green ; it is thoroughly 

 decomposed, so that the salts of that manure are fit to be taken 

 up by the plant. While a cartload of barnyard manure is 

 reduced in weight by the process of decomposition, it will be 

 increased in the elements of fertility by the development of 

 soluble salts in the process of decomposition. This has been 

 proved over and over again by the best English chemists. It 

 is therefore properly composting barnyard manures, or any 

 other manures, with those articles in which your soil is deficient, 

 which gives value to your manure ; using sand as a compost 

 for clay lands, and muck as a compost for sandy lands, and then 

 letting the whole mass decompose before you expect the plants 

 to take it up ; for if you put it into the soil green, you have 

 got to wait until the processes of fermentation and decompo- 

 sition take place before the plant can derive any nutriment from 

 it. I am sure if you will study the history of the best and 

 largest crops that have been raised, you will find that they have 

 been due to careful and accurate manipulation of the soil itself 

 which produced the crop, and the application of carefully pre- 

 pared and properly decomposed manure to the crop itself. That 

 I think is the law. 



Now I have one word to say as I go on — because I want to 

 take these things in order — in explanation. We have heard a 

 great deal said about fodder corn, and some people have been 

 kind enough to look at me and say, " What a pity it is that you 

 have committed yourself upon the wrong side of the fodder 

 corn question." I have had more sympathy — I have had a 

 great deal of abuse and a great deal of ridicule heaped upon 



17 



