MYSTERIES OF NATURE. 185 



trated fertilizers that we can put on our lands, year after 

 year, and keep them up, there are large quantities of land in 

 this State, which can be cultivated to advantage ; and it will 

 give us a chance to improve our agriculture, and improve our 

 agricultural resources. I must confess that I am rather scep- 

 tical in regard to whether you can, by putting sixteen bushels 

 of a fertilizer upon an acre, take off fifty bushels of corn 

 and two tons and a half of fodder. I say, I am rather scepti- 

 cal in regard to it ; but I do not wish to express the opinion 

 that it cannot be done, because I am aware that Nature is 

 able to do many mysterious things. We frequently say that 

 water wUl only run down hill ; and yet, when we come to ex- 

 amine the matter, we find that it cannot run down hill until 

 Nature makes it first go up. It all has to go up first, and it 

 is done very silently. I am not certam that we cannot pro- 

 duce fifty bushels of corn and two tons and a half of fodder 

 with sixteen bushels of fertilizer ; but it will be a wonderful 

 thing if we can. There is one thing which leads me to think 

 this is possible. You all know that Nature, when left to her- 

 self, is able to fertilize the land. For example, we know 

 very well that barren knolls, if left to themselves, will throw 

 up little shrubs, which will become trees in the course of 

 twenty-five or thirty years, and furnish perhaps more than 

 one hundred tons of solid material ; and yet, when that ma- 

 terial is taken away, the land is left in better condition than 

 it was when the growth of the wood first commenced. This 

 shows that Nature has the power of replenishing herself in 

 some way. But whether this can be carried out in our annual 

 crops, is what I desire to know. I am trying the experiment 

 mj'self ; and, if I live long enough, I shall know from my own 

 experiments whether this can be done or not. I rose simply 

 to make this inquiry, hoping that there may be individuals 

 present who have tried the experiments. 



Mr. Philbrick of Newton Centre. I have been very 

 much interested in the lecture which has just been read. It 

 touches a point of vital importance to every farmer. We all 

 of us depend upon manure. We cannot get enough of it, 

 and we want to know how to obtain a supply. We have 

 been told, that, in China and other foreign countries, they 

 utilize night-soil, and do it profitably. I wish I could say 

 that the experiments of farmers in this neighborhood have 



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