THE WHEAT CULTTJRIST. 189 



greatly benefited by a dressing of ground raw bone. 

 Thousands of acres of the best farming land in New 

 England are in a low state of impoverishment for the 

 want of a liberal dressing of raw ground bone. Such 

 fertilizing matter is the very life of the soil. European 

 farmers understand and appreciate this fact. They 

 know it pays to ship bones from America to enrich 

 their farms. The value of every ship-load of bones 

 that is picked from our land cannot readily be computed 

 in dollars and cents to the agriculture of our country. 

 England delights in her own fatness produced on the 

 choice cheese of American dairies, while we mutter and 

 grumble over a pot of the whey. Europeans rejoice 

 over the rich, sweet American butter, while we are so 

 unaccountably stupid as to be satisfied with the butter- 

 milk. Our farmers dig and delve, and rake and scrape 

 their grain-fields, meadows, and pastures to get phos- 

 phatic fertilizers to send to Europe to produce big crops 

 of turnips, and then grumble and denounce their own 

 land as good for nothing, because their turnips refuse to 

 grow as they do in Eastern countries. The truth on 

 this point is, American farmers must save and apply 

 more manure to their impoverished land: especially 

 must they save bones for growing a crop of turnips. As 

 soon as we can produce a bountiful crop of turnips we 

 can grow wheat. Wheat and turnips in England go 

 hand in hand. And when the wheat soils of America 

 are rendered sufficiently fertile to produce a crop of tur- 

 nips, we may have the eminent satisfaction of seeing 

 bountiful crops of choice wheat, where now the yield 

 will scarcely defray the expenses of harvesting and 

 thrashing the crop. Sometimes a farmer will have to 

 cultivate for several years before he can produce wheat. 



