8 WALL'S MANUAL 



arrived when it is cheaper and better to renovate 

 old, and comparatively worn out lands, than to clear 

 fresh lands. No country on the face of the wide 

 earth begins to improve permanently in agriculture 

 until that time has arrived. As long as fresh fields- 

 can be cleared, and wood land is cheap, the farmer 

 will abandon his old lands rather than improve 

 them ; but now, when it costs more to clear one acre 

 than improve it, we may confidently expect to see 

 great improvement in farming. 



Nothing pays the farmer a better per centage on 

 the investment than manure. The best farmer is not 

 he who cultivates the largest number of acres to the 

 hand, but he who raises the best and largest crops upon 

 a given number of acres. The soil is somewhat like 

 the man or beast work it without nourishment it 

 dies, or becomes worthless. The subject of improv- 

 ing the soil is now engaging the most earnest 

 attention of our best farmers, and wherever manure 

 has been intelligently applied it has paid at least one 

 hundred per cent, upon the investment. 



The farm is a great laboratory, and all those 

 changes in matter, w^hich it is the farmer's chief 

 business to produce, are of a chemical nature ; hence 

 the value of at least a limited knowledge of chemical 

 laws. The farmer breaks up and pulverizes his soil 

 with the plow, harrow, and hoe, for the same reason 

 that the practical chemist powders his minerals with 

 pestle and mortar to expose the materials more 

 perfectly to the action of chemical agents. 



To determine the best method of improving the 

 soil ; to economize the natural sources of fertility ; 

 to test the purity and value of commercial manures. 



