XIX. 



SOILS AND FERTILIZERS. 



A FARMER is a manufacturer of articles wherefrom 

 mankind are fed and clad ; his raw materials are the 

 soil and the various substances he mingles therewith 

 or adds thereto in order to increase its productive 

 capacity. His art consists in transforming by cul- 

 tivation crude, comparatively worthless, and even 

 noxious, offensive materials into substances grateful 

 to the senses, nourishing to the body, and sometimes 

 invigorating, even strengthening, to the mind. 



I have heard of lands that were naturally rich 

 enough ; I never was so lucky or perchance so dis- 

 cerning as to find them. Yet I have seen Illinois 

 bottoms whereof I was assured that the soil was fully 

 sixteen feet deep, and a rich, black alluvium from top 

 to bottom ; and I do not question the statements 

 made to me from personal observation that portions 

 of the strongly alkaline plain or swale on which Salt 

 Lake City is built, being for the first time plowed, 

 irrigated, and sown to Wheat, yielded ninety bushels 

 of good grain per acre. I never saw, yet on evidence 



