SPECIAL CROPS. 255 



goiijg on around liim. Two hundred pounds of Lones, yielding 

 one hundred pounds of bone ash, contain, 



Pliospliiite of lime, 88.00 pounds. Soda 3.25 pounds. 



Carbonate of lirae.. 6.00 '• Alkuline sulphates 

 Magnesia 1.25 " and chlorides 1.50 " 



This will require about eighty-eight pounds of oil of vitriol to 

 reduce to super phosphate. 



The above analyses show, in a measure, the constituents of 

 the various crops and manures, and may suggest the proper 

 a})plication of the one to the other. It must be remembered, 

 in this connection, that the crops can take up nothing but 

 liquids; and the most powerful manures, unless readily soluble 

 in the soil, are of no value to the crops. 



No application of manures, however, can preclude the neces- 

 sity of a rotation of crops in order to the lest results. There are 

 elements, both in the soil and in the air, that the nicest analyses 

 cannot detect, and nothing but time can replace. A rotation 

 of manures is also a necessity. The farmer who applies the 

 same manure, whatever crop he may take from the soil, has 

 yet to learn the first principles of rotation ; which are to replace, 

 as nearly as may be, the constituents removed by the crop. 

 There is also an adaptation of manures to the soil as well as 

 to the crop. A soil already full of lime is not benefitted by 

 more. 



Stock raising and mixed husbandry are essential requisites 

 of a system of rotation of crops. Farmers must keep more and 

 better stock if they would make farming pay. Says S. E. 

 Todd: " When the agriculture of our country is characterized 

 by that system of judicious management which will eventually 

 |)revail — when our soils shall have been underdrained as they 

 ought to be — when they shall be improved in fertility by 

 manuring and more complete pulverization — when our farmers 



