DIGEST OF STATE REPOKTS. 495 



uieuts of plaut growth, but is cold, tenacious, and inactive. To get a crop on sucli laud 

 you teil mo to apply somo fine, well-lormcnted manure in the hill ; this may bo well 

 so iar as it goes, but for the laud you had better apply broadcast, and mix with tho 

 soil a strong, coarso manure, which decomposes rapidly. The decomposition, with its 

 power of absorbing the sun's heat, will materially warm the land and give such pov/er 

 and efficiency to other agents that the soil itself,' and not simply the manure, is capa- 

 ble of plant production. These are examples of what may be done on a large scale by 

 tho action of manures iu your fields. Therefore uso it freely and judiciously for the 

 soil, and depend upon it the soil will take care of your plants, and consider any sub- 

 stance a munuro v/hich contains plant food, or which by its action makes it out of tho 

 n;aterial of the soil. If wo have rightly interpreted nature, the soil iu tho hand of ono 

 who understands its iaws of soil-change and development, tho intiueuce of each, tho 

 combined harmonious action of all, and tho power of manurial agents which he cau 

 apply or withhold at will — if the soil bo iu such bauds, its producing power is vir- 

 tually limitless. 



Mr. J. F. Lawrence, in an address before the board, urges tbe raising 

 of millet as a forage plant. He regards it as preferable to fodder-corti 

 for winter feeding. It can be rai.sed on ground too poor for corn ; the, 

 expense of its cultivation is not so great ; it is as easilj- cured as Eug- 

 iish bay, and is much more valuable as a forage plaut. In an ordinary 

 season, if sowed on v/arm land, it can be raised after the hay has been 

 harvested from it. He gives the following experiment with this crop. 



The 1st of July, the present year, I plowed a piece of land which vras mowed the 

 day before, dressed it with COO pounds of phosphate to the acre, seeded with one half 

 bushel of millet seed, costing $1, and in September, when in the milk, I cut and nicely 

 harvested two tons to tho acre, which is now in my barn looking ai? green and beauti- 

 ful as anything I ever saw, and which my cattle and horse jirefer to the best hay in 

 the barn. I have never raised a crop more cheaply, or with more satisfactory results, 

 and cannot too strongly urge its cultivation to my brother farmers of the State. 



Mr. Otis F. II. Waite contibutes an essay on the subject of rotation of 

 crops, from which we quote as follows : 



No one will denj' that where tho same cultiv.ated crop is frequently repeated on tho 

 same land and allowed to perfect itself, its product will, after ono or two repetitions, 

 begin to diminish, and if persisted iu will iu somo cases fail altogether. It may bo 

 said that tho haj-^ crop forms an exception to this rule ; but when it is considered that 

 grasses in hay-tields are mowed, and in pastures are cropped, before they iierfect their 

 seed, it will be seen that the exception does not hold. If thej' are allowed to grow to 

 the perfection of their seed, many, if not all of them, are subject to the same rules as 

 other crops. Forest trees aro not au exception to the rule. Although they bear fruit 

 when young, and for many years, yet they aro a long time iu reaching maturity ; be- 

 sides which they supply their own nutriment from tho decay of their own foliage. 

 Even in forests nature iu many cases clearly indicates tho necessity of a change of 

 production. Where oaks are cut down they are usually followed by a growth of i)ine, 

 and where pines aro removed, a growth of oaks springs up— tho soft and hard woods 

 thus alternating with each other. * * * * Alternation of crops, or tho growing 

 of a regular series of different farm crops upon each and every Held in successive 

 order, together with a system of green manuring, or plowiug into the soil green i)lauts, 

 has given to Flemish husbandry its great and acknowledged i)re-emineuco over that 

 of every other country. In Flanders it is said to be no uncommon thing for farniers to 

 carry on the operation of harvesting grain, plowing the ground, and sowing turnip 

 seed Jill at once, on ono and the same liekl. Tho ground is plowed up and re-sowed 

 with another and different crop as soon as the grain or other crop is cut off and re- 

 moved. It is by the same or similar alternations of crops that the farmers of the 

 county of Norfolk and other sandy regions of England, once very poor and unpro- 

 ductive, have converted them into tho most fruitful, wealthy, and poi)ulcus districts 

 of that kingdom. This same system has wrought similar clianges of agricultural im- 

 provements iu Scotland and Germany, and it will, if properly and perseveringly pur- 

 sued, produce equally beneficial results in our own country. There is nothing iu 

 farming that requires a nicer judgment, or ou which the farnier's profits more depend, 

 than ujjou tho order in which the various farm crops cultivated are made to succeed 

 each other upon our tields. Tho green manuring and alternatiug husbandry, so sue- 

 cessfulin Flanders, has been adopted to a considerable extent in nearly all'thc other 

 countries of Europe, and is constantly growing in favor there. Turnips in those coun- 

 tries have been used quite gen. -.ally as a soil-renovating crop with great advantage, 

 their large, spreading leaves -.hawing more uourishmeut from the atmospliero thau 

 their roots do from the soil. Sheej) are turned into the fields and eat off tho tops or 



