122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



more powerfully than any words that they had rather pay for 

 them, than to do without them. They may assert that these arti- 

 cles ought to be furnished for less money, or that they should pro- 

 duce greater results. They may think of themselves that they are 

 not growing rich as fast as they deserve to, and may choose to ex- 

 ercise their inestimable privilege of grumbling. But still they 

 buy, and we are entitled to take their action as proof of the gen- 

 eral statement that the use of commercial fertilizers is profitable. 

 This is really more than it is necessary for me to prove. To estab- 

 lish the value of any article, it is only necessary to prove that it 

 can be pi'ofitably used. It is possible to waste or throw away our 

 choicest treasures. "When once the fact of value in anything is 

 established by sufficient evidence, the negative testimony of many 

 failures to find it can have no weight. A large and increasing 

 number of persons have found the use of commercial fertilizers 

 profitable. The failures must be ascribed to ignorance or neglect 

 of the conditions of success, and not to the worthlessness of the 

 articles used. 



We will now turn our attention, if you please, to the conse- 

 quences of this new departure and endeavor to learn something of 

 their extent and character. I name first what is perhaps the most 

 obvious of them all. It has emancipated farmers from the limita- 

 tions imposed by a dependence upon home or local supplies of 

 manure. " Cultivate no more land than you can manure well," 

 has been the oft-repeated injunction of agricultural writers and 

 speakers. It is an injunction both wise and important. But 

 when coupled with the condition that only home supplies of 

 manure are to be used it means limitation — a hmitation which 

 makes farming in all but exceptional circumstances compara- 

 tively small business. I am speaking, of course, of farming in 

 Connecticut, and here and wherever similar conditions prevail, 

 home supplies of manure are not as a general rule sufficient. I 

 am willing to admit that the fertility of a farm may be maintained 

 and some profit realized under this restriction, but it can be done 

 only by a corresponding restriction of production. The largest 

 production — the most profitable production — cannot be attained 

 while the business of the farm is thus hedged about and ham- 

 pered. The business cannot grow to meet the demands of the 

 market nor respond to the gracious invitations of opportunity. 

 What, for illustration, could a manufacturer do if hmited for ma- 

 terial to one small local source of supply ? He might have com- 



