AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 245 



even liere, to prevent intelligent and diligent agriculturists from meeting 

 with f;iilures. 



Mr. Pardee proposed, as subjects for next meeting, " Spring flowers," 

 " Seeds, plants a«d trees." 



Wm, Lawton inquired if there could not be created, from the soil and air, 

 a power of recuperation, to balance the loss of exportation of fertility with 

 grain, and other products. He said : I believe that a simple process would 

 restore fertility to waste places. He even thought Canada thistles a bles- 

 sing, rather than a curse, and that a growth of them would serve to restore 

 fertility to worn out fields. Mr. Lawton eloquently said, that the land 

 within twenty miles around this city, ought to be made beautiful, lovely 

 homes, so happy as to prevent the people from running away to distant 

 regions, as they now do. 



Andrew S. Fuller. — I believe that it is a principle of nature, for all 

 plants to deposit upon the earth enough to keep up fertility. Look at 

 forests. The first growth was upon sterile land, a.nd a continuous 

 growth has enriched the earth. If we will keep and apply all straw to the 

 land, we can take away the grain. The excrement of any animal will pro- 

 duce more than the animal can consume. This has been proved by experi- 

 ments, and so it has in the growth of trees. I think that we can export 

 all that others will take from us, if we use the proper means to keep up 

 the fertility of our land. The larch put on barren land, soon enriches it, 

 and makes feed for cows. The natural power of plants to enrich land ena- 

 bles us to spare some of its products without loss of fertility. 



Mr. Meigs reminded the club of the enriching doctrine and practice of 

 the admired John Taylor, of Caroline, Virginia, whose little manual, the 

 "Arator," (plowman,) deserves immortality. He converted the barrens, 

 caused by a depraved wasting tillage, into thirty bushels of wheat acres. 

 He put everj'thing into the soil, except its mere fruit and grain ; every 

 leaf, bit of wood, weed, straw, stump — everything. He thought we could 

 have the grain only, the tender leaf of cabbage only, not the stumps and 

 coarse parts, nor the skins of apples, or stems, or cores, but the flesh of 

 the apple only, &c. Another wise and good man, James Madison, after 

 his presidential term expired, became president of a farmers' club (agricul- 

 tural society), and there taught a doctrine in agriculture which I cannot 

 forget, viz : " That God ordered it that on level lands, bearing forests for 

 ages, could not create a soil over about one foot deep, because having cre- 

 ated man of such a size that he could till that depth loith his spade or 

 ploiv, and no more. That the deep soils washed into the vallies are only 

 exceptions, and of no use." Indeed, we have found, lately, that when, on 

 some of the worn out soils, cultivated hitherto four inches deep, we thor- 

 oughly spade up, or plow, ten inches deep, we find fertility in it. 



Mr. Pardee was glad to see lessons on fertility increasing in value, and 

 hoped we should soon have a system of undoubted rules as to manures. 



Mr. John P. Veeder. — Every resource that is at hand I find important, 

 and necessary, to apply, to keep up fertility — everything to increase the 



