106 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



taste, aids in debasing his fellow-man, and is himself debased by the act. To all farmers we 

 would say, in the cultivation and disposal of your crops, be true to the principle of riyht 

 and honor ; let that be the standard of choice always, and the popular demand secondary 

 to this. 



Choice of Crops Modified by the Character of the Soil. Another very im 

 portant consideration, in determining the kind of crops to be cultivated, is the character of 

 the soil. No farmer can be very successful in his business who does not understand the 

 nature of his soil and the crops to which it is best adapted. The soil of some farms is better 

 suited to grass and the rearing of stock; others for grain, roots, and other cultivated crops; 

 others still for fruit culture principally. Some farms are better adapted to certain particular 

 kinds of stock those for special purposes; others still for specialties in farming, while many 

 are suited to a mixed husbandry, or the cultivation of many of the farm products. 



In making a choice of crops, therefore, the farmer will find it to his advantage to under 

 stand the character of the soil he is to cultivate, as well as the demands of the market, and 

 produce those for which his lands are best adapted. If he attempts to cultivate products that 

 are best suited to a dry, warm soil, in a cold clay or wet lands, or the reverse, he will generally 

 meet with failure, unless by underdraining the wet lands or otherwise changing the condi 

 tion of the respective soils, they become suited to the growth of the plants for which they are 

 not naturally adapted. Again, some soils may possess more of certain kinds of elements of plant- 

 growth than of others; for instance, one soil m?.y be more deficient in phosphoric acid than 

 the other desired elements of plant-food; another may have an abundance of phosphoric acid, 

 but be lacking .in potash, etc., the same principle applying to a deficiency of any of the 

 elements of plant-food, the stores of which may be capable of a partial or complete exhaustion 

 in a soil. Fortunately for the farmer, science has come to his aid and pointed out to him the 

 way to restore the elements that may be deficient in his lands, through over-cropping without 

 sufficient fertility restored to the soil, or for other reasons, and when once he has determined 

 the great want of his lands, he may, by applying it in the form of commercial fertilizers or 

 farm manure, so change its nature and condition as to adapt it to the successful cultivation 

 of crops that it would not otherwise produce. 



He may use special fertilizers for special crops, or he may use barn-yard manure, if it 

 can be obtained in sufficient quantities, since it is a complete fertilizer for all crops, and the 

 commercial fertilizers are not. Special fertilizers that are complete can, however, be made 

 for certain crops by a proper combination in kind and quality of commercial manures, which 

 have given remarkable results even in soils not especially adapted to their production. Barn 

 yard manure is more slow in its results than commercial fertilizers, since it requires a longer 

 time for it to become assimilated to plant-growth, being coarse in texture, while commercial 

 fertilizers, being reduced to a condition to be readily taken up by the plants, act more quickly 

 in stimulating the growth of crops. For this reason, where barn-yard manure is applied 

 alone, the yield is always modified more largely by the adaptation of the land for the particular 

 crop under cultivation, than where commercial fertilizers are used, and much of the fertility 

 in the soil is left over to the following year, while the fertilizing properties of commercial 

 manures are usually mostly extracted during the first season. &quot;With skillful management 

 with special fertilizers those adapted to certain products many crops may be grown suc 

 cessfully on lands that otherwise were not well adapted to their production; still, as a general 

 rule, the best permanent results are attained on lands naturally suited to the crop to be culti 

 vated. It is well, however, for the fanner to bear in mind that one of the most important 

 things to be considered is the necessity of thoroughly understanding, as far as can be, the 

 nature of the soil he is to cultivate. The value of this knowledge cannot well be over 

 estimated. The soil is the element with which the farmer has to deal, and unless he possesses 

 a good knowledge of it, and knows the crops to which it is best adapted, he cannot expect to 



