116 FIRESIDE SCIENCE. 



a class of manurial agents which do not partake of 

 the nature of animal excrement. It is worth much 

 to know that these agents are proved capable of 

 exerting a sustaining influence upon our soils, that 

 -.hese fertilizing effects are felt year after year, and 

 that crops do not rapidly falter when they can 

 draw nutriment from no other sources. We have 

 learned that remunerative crop returns are possible 

 and probable when special fertilizing agents are 

 employed in their highest integrity, and when a 

 fair profit only is paid in the purchase of the raw 

 materials. Before passing to the consideration of 

 another topic incident to this discussion, I will 

 briefly allude to the grain crops produced upon the 

 farm. 



A crop of corn has been raised each season since 

 186-1, and also a crop of spring wheat until the 

 present year. Rye, oats, roots, and potatoes, with 

 the various grasses, complete the list. From care- 

 ful records of expenses and results, the corn crop is 

 found to have been the most remunerative, and the 

 wheat comes next. During the seven consecutive 

 seasons closing in 1870, we have passed through 

 great vicissitudes of meteorological changes : we 

 have had seasons characterized by extreme wet, 

 and by unparalleled heat and drought; some have 

 been quite extended, and others have been very 

 brief. That of 1869 gave us only about one hun- 



