1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 129 



surely be found. I am not authorized to speak for the other party 

 to this intercourse, but I venture to suggest that it is at least pos- 

 sible that its benefits may be mutual. Something may be learned 

 by observation, even in a limited sphere, which may not be found 

 in any book and which may furnish the missing link in a chain 

 of demonstration without which all the other links would be 

 useless. I should like to believe that something of this kind 

 might occasionally happen, and that thus the meeting together of 

 those rich in knowledge and those poor in the same currency 

 might be for the advantage of both classes. The intercourse 

 between them establishes a common fund of knowledge, and 

 even if at first the contributions to it are nearly all from one side 

 I should hope that it might not long remain so. Neither side will 

 lose anything by their contributions, but I should like to believe 

 that both might be contributors to it and both be enriched from 

 it. 



The agriculture of the future is to depend largely upon supplies 

 of plant food brought from sources outside the farm, and prepared 

 for the farmer's use by men who make that their business and 

 bring to it capital, skill, and business talent commensurate with its 

 importance. This new departure in agriculture is already firmly 

 established. It involves a revolution which is not to go back- 

 ward. 



Our movement is away from, not towards primitive agriculture. 



We are to be not gatherers merely but makers of our product. 



If at liberty to use such a combination of words I would say : 

 we are to be manufacturers of agricultural products. The sources 

 whence all these supplies of plant food are to be drawn we cannot 

 at present expect to know. 



"We draw them now in part from natural deposits which are 

 being exhausted with greater or less rapidity. Some of them may 

 last a long time, but sooner or later the last shovelful of guano 

 will be gathered from tropic islands where for so long a time it 

 has been accumulating for our use. Sooner or later the mines of 

 phosphatic deposit will fail and all those sources of supply repre- 

 sented by limited deposits will be exhausted. New discoveries 

 may put the point of exhaustion far in the dim future, but no 

 matter how great the stock may be, a steady reduction will at 

 length exhaust it. 



There is, however, a source of supply which we have as yet 

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