280 MY FARM. 



chemical colors as he would match colts, and the race 

 is won. They fancy that the new analyses and ex 

 periments so delicate and so elaborate are by their 

 revelations reducing the art of farming to a simple 

 affair of the mechanical adjustment of regularly-bil 

 leted chemical forces. There could not be a greater 

 mistake made ; so far from simplifying, the new in 

 vestigations demand a larger practical skill, since the 

 conditions under which it works are amplified and 

 extended. The old bases of procedure, if faulty, 

 were at least compact ; the experimental farmer dealt 

 with but few, and those clearly defined ; but scien 

 tific investigation, by its refining processes, has split 

 the old bases of action into a hundred lesser truths, 

 each one of which must be taken into the account, 

 and modify our operations. 



There was a time, for instance, when science, ob 

 serving that a living plant built itself out of the 

 debris of dead plants, declared for the primal neces 

 sity of a large supply of decayed vegetable material. 

 This at least was simple, and the farmer, if he had 

 only his stock of humus, left the further fulfilment 

 of the miracle of growth to wind and weather. In 

 process of time, however, science detected the rare 

 luxuriance which ammonia imparts to plant foliage, 

 and after refining upon the observation, declared for 

 nitrogen as the great needed element ; schedules were 



