126 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



expect will command the unqualified assent of this audience. I 

 offer them as suggestions rather than assertions. They are, per- 

 haps, not susceptible of proof. At all events, I shall not attempt 

 to prove, but only very briefly to state and illustrate them. I 

 believe that farmers who are habitual users of commercial fer- 

 tilizers are also those who best appreciate and most wisely use 

 whatever manures the farm produces. I believe that the use of 

 commercial fertilizers has led to a better understanding of that 

 wonderful process of development of plant food from the inor- 

 ganic elements of the soil which constitutes natural fertility. I 

 believe that the use of commercial fertilizers has led to a better 

 understanding of the value and importance of tillage, and that in 

 all these particulars a better understanding has been followed by 

 an improved practice. Consider, if you please, how that until 

 the use of commercial fertilizers became common, we had no 

 standard of valuation by which to estimate any fertilizer. The 

 standard which we have is not claimed to be perfect, but it is 

 year by year improving, and the practice of referring to it all 

 manures which are valuable simply for the plant food which 

 they contain is year by year increasing. Using this standard, 

 we soon came to know something about what it could not meas- 

 ure as well as about what it aid measure. We learned that 

 some fertilizers have a value quite outside their value as sources 

 of plant food. I do not mean that this had never been thought 

 of or suggested before, but rather that the thought has now for 

 the first time taken definite philosophical and practical form in 

 the common mind. In what does this value consist ? This ques- 

 tion opens up a very interesting field of inquiry. We are led 

 by it to investigate the constant production of plant food in the 

 soil through change of form or condition in its elements and the 

 agencies by which this change is effected. If certain beneficent 

 applications have brought nothing of value to the soil, they must 

 have the power of developing something of value from tlie soil. 

 We learn that some substances, not of much value as plant food, 

 are of great value in aiding these transformations which develop 

 natural fertility. Home supplies of manure partake largely of 

 this nature. Some articles sold in the markets are chiefly valu- 

 able for this quality. We are learning to think and act with dis- 

 crimination, and ought certainly to be able to value more justly 

 and use more profitably all sources and means of fertility. Closely 

 allied to this inquiry is that which relates to the value of tillage. 



