FAEMEES' INSTITUTES. 393 



After giving the results and speaking of the state of the soil before the exper- 

 iment, and the conditions that led to tlie results this deduction is made : "It is 

 not to be concluded from this, however, that the farmer may with impunity 

 grow large white-straw crops by means of artificial manures without a due sup- 

 ply of farmyard manure to the land at some period of the rotation." 



The results showed that of the mannres aj^plied, the amount of nitrogen 

 returned in the crops of six years was only about forty per cent of the amount 

 applied during the four years of the manurial application even wdtii the best 

 crops. Lawes and Gilbert farther state that by the use of such mineral manure 

 a farmer may, if he has applied a liberal amount of manure during the rotation, 

 take an extra grain crop by nsing one and one-half times or twice as much arti- 

 ficial manure as when the crop is grown in the regular rotation. There are 

 others^who give concurrent testimony. Mr. Archibald Smith Maxwell in an 

 article on portable manures and their home manufacture says, "It is absurd to 

 suppose that these alone can keep the land at all times in good heart ; they 

 ought rather to be employed as stimulants or auxiliaries than as a complete 

 substitute for farmyard manure." That our soils need something beside the 

 ordinary chemical elements to keep up their fertility, is getting to be an estab- 

 lished fact. But in France it was once su^Dposed that Flemish manure, or night- 

 soil, would do this without the application of coarser substances. The Agricul- 

 tural Society of Lille appointed a committee to answer certain questions in regard 

 to this fertilizing agent. In answer to their first question, ''Can Flemish 

 manure be used exclusively?" they say, "There can be no progressive agricul- 

 ture without stock, and consequently without straw manure. * * * 

 From the results of direct experiments we are convinced that employed alone it 

 tends to give a solidity to the soil which repeated plowings would fail to remove." 

 One farm is mentioned in this district of Lille where but two cows were kept on 

 one hundred acres of land, and Flemish manure used almost exclusively. It 

 soon became evident that the corn ran to leaf. The stems did not develop 

 properly, and the yield was deficient. Upon changing the system and introduc- 

 ing plenty of stock on the farm, and using their manure, the crops soon became 

 equal to any in the district. 



They conclude that such strong and concentrated manures are much better 

 adapted to light soils than heavy, and that all soils need some straw or coarse 

 manure with animal excrements to keep a proper porosity of the soil. 



You are almost ready to infer from what I have said that I would hardly advo- 

 cate wheat culture to any great extent. Not so ; but I would recommend to 

 sow a less number of acres, and instead of making wheat the prime crop, only 

 cultivate it as a means to the filling up of a rotation, and as a crop to seed to 

 grass after. Although farmers do not as a mass so consider it, grass is their 

 main dependence, and instead of grain being king, grass is the real king. Far- 

 mers should have the grass in their rotation the most important desideratum, 

 and raise the other crops not merely as a means to get so many dollars profit by 

 their sale, but labor to keep up the fertility of their farms. In order to do this 

 a crop of wheat should not be taken from a field more than once in four years, 

 and it would be better if it could not be done more than once in six years. 

 Some of our best farmers are advocating and adopting the system of taking oats 

 or barley before a crop of wheat, and the time was when wheat was largely sown 

 after corn in Michigan, but we are glad to say is now nearly abandoned. 



As to the crop of oats or iDarley, if we consider them as the main crop, and 

 the wheat merely as a crop to fill up time and as excellent to seed, after we iiave 



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