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We have tried the clover four years on certain plats, and we could not get 

 good results, and we could not get good results with the Crucifenie, but when 

 we put on Japanese millet and certain other things, they seemed to thrive. If 

 there is anything in the plant family that is a scavenger I thing it is redtop. 

 It will thrive and give magnificent crops where the turnip and the beet and the 

 Cruciferjic are all absolute failures. Therefore, I say when we are considering 

 these questions we must remember that Doctor Hopkins's conclusions apply to 

 two or three ci'ops. and can not be applied generally throughout the United 

 States, nor to all kinds of crops. 



William P. P>rooks. As Doctor Wheeler has referred to the question of dif- 

 ferent phosphates, you may be interested in the results which have been ob- 

 tained at Amherst in comi)aring phosi)hates. We have one field where for 

 twelve years we h.ive been comparing phosphates, on the basis of phosphoric 

 acid, applied of course to all plats equally. With liberal and equal amounts of 

 nitrogen and potash on all. The phosphates under comparison have been raw 

 and .steamed bone, raw bone, acid phosphates, dissolved bone, and we have South 

 Carolina and Florida phosphates, and phosphatic slag, and the results vary very 

 widely wKli the croj). With a crop of cabbages there is a marked difference, 

 and the best results are with acid phosphates and dissolved boneblack, and dis- 

 solved bone meal and the slag ; and one of the poorest returns is given by 

 South Carolina rock, while the Florida phosphate is no better than nothing. 

 But if we put the field in corn, as we have done, the crops are substantially 

 equal on all the plats in the field. I am now putting that field for the first time 

 into grass and clover, but in general it is the Cruciferte only that have shown 

 marked difference in their capacity to make use of these phosphates. 



W. R. DousoN, of Louisiana. There is one phase, I think, which has not been 

 entered into fully enough in the discussions. It seems to me Doctor Hojikins 

 was looking further into the future than we are ordinarily given to looking. 

 I refer to that phase of his paper that was looking to the duty we owe to 

 posterity ; that we should not look at this in the spirit of merely putting some- 

 thing in the soil and getting back from it all that we can, but that we 

 should consider that our children and their children are going to have posses- 

 sion of this soil. AVe know that by doing certain things we stimulate condi- 

 tions so that we get more from the soil than if we had not added that stimu- 

 lant ; that we are gradually robbing the soil of elements to an extent we 

 scarcely realize. We want to bring our people to understand that while there 

 is a great supply of nitrogen that we can get by means of the leguminous 

 plants, the supply of bone, and the supply of rock phosphate, feo far as we can 

 see, is some day going to be insulticient for the i)hosphate demand of the crop. 



This, then, is the great question, looking into the future : How are we to 

 maniimlate these crops in rotation, and how are we to handle our system of 

 fertilization, so tiiat we can band this soil down to posterity in an unimpaired 

 condition? While we can see our way to furnishing whatever potash or what- 

 ever nitrogen we need, so far as we can now see there is danger of the phos- 

 phoric acid becoming depleted, and there is no source of supply from which 

 what will be necessary can be furnished. 



J. L. Sheldon, of West Virginia. I believe we are getting down to tlie 

 principles in agricultui-e which have been so emphasized by Marshall Ward, 

 the English authority from which he deduces the proposition that the plant 

 is the foundation of all work in agriculture; that the soil, the moisture, etc., 

 are merely the environments. We are trying to grow all kinds of plants on the 

 .same kind of soils. In other words, we are trying to raise horses on swill, and 

 hogs on straw. Is it not time that we began to study the i)lant and its food, 

 and how that plant can best get that food, .so that we can make a profitable 



