MANURES. 2T1 



to the soil. If we sell milk, or wool, or flesh, the phosphate of 

 lime and potash contained in those products should be returned 

 from some foreign source ; and it should be our constant aim to 

 keep the ability of the soil to furnish plant-food continually 

 increasing rather than diminishing. 



The greatest care of the farmer should be given to the husband- 

 ing of these mineral elements, and while it is, perhaps, on these 

 alone that the permanent fertility of his soil depends, he will find 

 that his true interest requires him to increase, as much as possible, 

 by home manufacture, by purchase, and by absorption from the 

 atmosphere, the amount of ammonia or nitrates on which the extra 

 productiveness of his land must depend. For, although the 

 old " mineral theory " of Liebig is undoubtedly true, it is also true 

 that the amount of ammonia that the soil receives from the at- 

 mosphere under natural circumstances may be with advantage 

 increased, both by application 'in manure and by offering facilities 

 for a still larger absorption from the air. 



The careful observance of these rules, coupled, of course, with 

 due attention to the mechanical condition of the soil, especially to 

 its draining, and incidentally to all of those other parts of the 

 farmer's business which help to increase the results of his labor, 

 must inevitably make the cultivation of any land — no matter how 

 poor it may be originally — more and more profitable as years pass 

 on. And it may be stated as a fixed rule, that no system of farm- 

 ing under which land does not, year by year, grow better, can be 

 called good farming ; for, however much money soil-robbery may 

 put into the farmer's pocket, it is more than balanced by the 

 deterioration of his original capital and of the fertility on which 

 alone his true prosperity is based. 

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