VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 107 



Commercial fertilizers are well enough in their way. 

 Barnyard manure should be carefully husbanded and more 

 and better manue should be made. But their value is apt to 

 be overestimated and that of thorough tillage as a factor in 

 crop production underrated. The commercial fertilizer sup- 

 plies nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash and lime ; the barn- 

 yard manure, all of these as well as humus. But tillage does 

 more. It develops and betters the plant food stock on hand, 

 it gets at and unlocks nature's doors, frees these elements al- 

 ready in the soil, and, moreover, its relation to the water sup- 

 ply, which above every thing else, perhaps, is the controlling 

 factor, is of the closest kind. As a water saver and bacteria 

 promoter alone it is worth more than it costs ; and the freed 

 plant food is "thrown in." The old Roman worthy, who 

 said that the three things most needed to insure a good crop 

 were tillage, tillage and tillage, had the right idea. Would 

 that more American farmers would follow his advice! 



