SOILS AND FEKTILIZEBS. 115 



Many men fertilize their poor lands only, supposing 

 that the better can do without. I judge that to be a 

 mistake. My rule would be to plant the poorest with 

 such choice trees as thrive without manure, and pile 

 the fertilizers upon the better. It seems to me 

 plain that of two fields, one of which has a soil con- 

 taining nine-tenths of the elements of the desired 

 crop, while the other shows but one to three-tenths, 

 it is a more hopeful and less thankless task to enrich 

 the former than the latter. If you are required to 

 supply to a field nearly everything that your pro- 

 posed crop will withdraw from it, I do not see where 

 the profit comes in ; but if you are required to supply 

 but a tenth, because the soil as you found it stood 

 ready to contribute the remaining nine-tenths, it 

 seems to me that the margin for profit is here de- 

 cidedly the greater. 



How many tuns of earth ought a farmer to be 

 obliged to turn over and over in order to obtain 

 therefrom a hundred bushels of Corn? Two hun- 

 dred ? Five hundred ? A thousand ? Five thousand ? 

 Other things being equal, no one will doubt that, if 

 he can make the Corn from one hundred tuns of soil, 

 it were better to do so than to employ five hundred 

 or five thousand. It seems clear to my mind that, 

 though other conditions be unequal, it is generally 

 well to endeavor to produce the required quantity 

 from the smaller rather than the larger area. 



I fully share the average farmer's partiality for 

 barn -yard manure in preference to most, if not all, 



