COMBINATION OF ELEMENTS REQUIRED. 249 



furnishes the magncsian element in the cheapest, and a suffi- 

 ciently eligible form. How shall we apply them ? This can be 

 understood with a full knowledge of what end is had in view, or 

 what special want is to be supplied. There can be no success 

 under the ordinary conditions in which our agricultural labors 

 are performed, unless an intelligent system is adopted and 

 pursued persistently from one year to another. 



It is not necessary that farmers should be practical chemists, 

 to be successful in the employment of fertilizing agencies. A 

 few simple principles, furnished by chemistry, if well understood 

 and earnestly adopted, will enable any one to appropriate to his 

 benefit all the important facts unfolded by science, in respect to 

 manurial applications. In treating a worn-out soil, a combina- 

 tion of all the elements needed for the three great families of 

 plants, should be employed ; and if wheat or corn is to be culti- 

 vated, fields so prepared will yield a maximum return the first 

 year. The second year, add the proper quantity of that which 

 these grains demand in largest abundance, or which they 

 abstracted from the soil the first year. These will be the 

 nitrogen and phosphate of lime. If roots have been cultivated, 

 the phosphates alone will be needed — if some member of the 

 pod-bearing or leguminous family, potash. The three varieties 

 of plants may be followed in rotation, with success, when by 

 experiment the plan is clearly understood. 



The great, prominent idea is, to maintain in the soil all the 

 elements that plants require, and in sufficient abundance. If a 

 particular crop removes a specific agent, supply it. Barn-yard 

 manure furnishes all ; and yet, the same intelligence is to be 

 employed in its use, and the equilibrium of elements must be 

 maintained between it and crops. We know what, and how 

 much corn requires ; we know how much good manure is 

 capable of furnishing. A fundamental point in good farming 

 is, to secure every ounce of this possible. It is an absurd notion, 

 however, to suppose we can artificially produce it, by ill-adjusted 

 mixtures of turf, sods, chaff and rubbish. We can easily form 

 a huge and dark heap, but if the salts be absent, which almost 

 alone give value, it is hardly worth the labor it costs. 



But the supply of barn-yard manure is not and cannot be 

 adequate to our wants, and this brings us to the third question. 

 I wish I could furnish an answer more satisfactory to you, 



32 



