SPECIAL PLANT-FOOD. 205 



sensible that the farmer, in addition to his animal manures, 

 should supply that particular want of the crop ; and, if I have 

 ever had any success in growing crops, it has been in that 

 direction. Now, the question will come up, If that position 

 is right, how are you going to do it ? Why, simply in this 

 way. It does not require a great deal of knowledge ; but I 

 presume very few in this room, after all, have it. It does not 

 require a great deal of knowledge, does not require a great 

 deal of time, for each one of you to post himself up so that 

 he can buy advisedly all the simple elements he wants, and 

 apply them to these crops. Take the analyses of crops by 

 Professor Goessmann, or the analyses that you will find in all 

 the chemical works, which will tell jon the amount of potash, 

 for instance, that some plants want. Suppose you want to 

 raise onions, which require potash. Why should you not add 

 potash, when you manure for that crop, in the form of sul- 

 phate of potash ? then you will not supply a large amount of 

 other materials that the onions do not want. It seems to me 

 it is very simple, and that the farmers of JNIassachusetts ought 

 to post themselves up so that they can do it. Then, after 

 doing that, and being able to supply those particular wants, 

 which, as I said before, they can do, I think they will raise 

 better crops, and I think they will be satisfied with them. 



Now, it is very easy for some learned men, or some manu- 

 facturers of fertilizers, or some learned chemists (I do not 

 mean this to apply to Professor Goessmann, because he is too 

 modest altogether ; or to Professor Stockbridge, I should 

 add), — it is very easy, I say, for some men to undertake to 

 prescribe for my land ; but they do not know any thing about 

 my soil : that is the point. They can tell what is good for 

 crops ; but they cannot tell half as much about my soil as I 

 can. That is where I think farmers fail. They leave it to 

 other men to tell them what they should know themselves 

 about their own land, and prescribe for the land. It is their 

 business. They have got to find the brains and the land, and 

 the chemists and professors will tell them what they want 

 for their crops. Then let them go to Boston, and instead of 

 buying this mixed-up stuff, which they do not know any thing 

 about, let them buy the materials in a form they will know, 

 not in the form of superphosphates, not in the form of any 

 special manures, but let them buy that particular article, and 



