No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 221 



manure, when there is a loss of the part of the liquid manure in 

 the stables or in the yard? Will green crops plowed under help 

 out in this case? 



PROF. COOKE: I have another question here that is substan- 

 tially like that; contains about the same idea. 



"Is there any way of building up a farm without putting anything 

 on it, without commercial fertilizer or barnyard manure? 



Well, there is if you want to take time enough to do it. If you 

 are willing to wait to build it up slowly enough, but I doubt whether 

 we can afford to wait for that, building up by a longer and slower 

 process to enable us to attain this end. 



To go back a couple of hundred years, it was then customary to 

 turn the land out and let it lie fallow until such a time as Nature 

 would help to bring it up, but in this modern generation we have 

 given up the fallowing of land, and I think it is better to add some- 

 thing to it and hurry up the process. 



A Member: How can a farmer successfully conduct his affairs and 

 produce his crops without a greater knowledge of chemistry; and 

 how can a farmer successfully fertilize his soil without being able 

 to ascertain the proportion of plant food the soil is deficient in? 



PROF. COOKE: Well, the idea that I attempted to convey in my 

 remarks was, that the amount of plant food that was in the soil 

 is just so much, and we are to keep adding to that as we take off 

 crops from the soil, so that whatever you think your crop is carry- 

 ing away, you add to it; be sure that you have got enough there; 

 it does not make any difference if you have got a surplus; the more 

 the better. 



A Member: Would you be governed entirely by the composition 

 of the crops to be raised as to what you would apply? 



PROF. COOKE: The first year the application would be merely 

 to put on enough; be sure that I had enough, if I was going to put 

 on potash I should do as I have done a good many times; I should— 



A Member: What would you do the second year? 



PROF. COOKE: After I was sure that there was plenty there, 

 then I should be governed largely by the amount of plant food that 

 I considered had been extracted from the farm by the crops; after 

 I got enough so that I knew there was plenty in there, I should be 

 governed by the amount I considered had been taken off. 



Several members questioned whether fertilizers would not be 

 wasted if applied in the way advised by Prof. Cooke in his paper, 

 to which Prof. Cooke replied in substance as follows: 



