CHAPTER III. 

 THERE IS NO BAD LAND 



BY far the largest factor in my transformation is a 

 thoughtful use of artificial manures, but there 

 were several stages before that. Intelligent farm- 

 ing begins in geology, and I determined to begin 

 from the very beginning. Having spent about a 

 month most scientifically, under good direction, 

 I astonished myself by the amount of agricultural 

 chemistry and economic botany that a man with a 

 knowledge of laws and principles could master in a 

 month ; and even now, after fourteen years, I find 

 very little added by the needs of practice to that 

 first month's work. In other words, the amount 

 of science necessary in doubling the production of a 

 Connaught farm can be acquired in less than one- 

 third of the time which the Connaught farmer 

 spends on his annual holiday. 



I found the uplands an impoverished peaty 

 loam, on a base of limestone gravel, with a ferric 

 stratum intervening, in some places solidly im- 

 pervious to the necessary percolation under rain and 

 to the necessary evaporation under heat, though 

 a good deal of the " flag " had been empirically 

 broken by the uninstructed muscle of preceding 

 generations. They had apparently found out that 

 it was good to " break the flag " ; it remained for 



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