282 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



*' manure, nor has the field increased in the conditions of its fer- 

 *' tility. There has been no augmentation in the gross amount of 

 "the elements of food in the soil, but simply an increase of the 

 ^'■available effective portion of these elements, and an acceleration 

 *' of the results in a given time. 



" The physical and chemical condition of the fields has been 

 *■*" improved, but the chemical store has been reduced ; all plants^ 

 ^'"without exception^ exhaust the soil^ each of them in its own way^ of 

 *' the conditions for their reproduction. 



" There are fields that will yield w^ithout manuring for six, 

 " twelve, fifty, or a hundred years successively, crops of cereals, 

 *' potatoes, vetches, clover, or any other plants, and the whole 

 " produce can be carried away from the land ; but the inevitable 

 " result is at last the same, the soil loses its fertility. 



" In the produce of his field, the farmer sells in reality his 

 *' land ; he sells in his crops certain elements of the atmosphere 

 " that are constantly being replaced from that inexhaustible store, 

 "and certain constituents of the soil that are his property, and 

 " which have served to form, out of the atmospheric elements, 

 "the body of the plant, of which they themselves also constitute 

 " component parts. In altogether alienating the crops of his 

 " fields, he deprives the land of the conditions for their reproduc- 

 " tion. A system of farming based upon such principles justly 

 *' deserves to be branded as a system of spoliation. Had all of 

 *' the constituents of the soil carried ofF from the field in the 

 " produce sold, been, year after year, or rotation after rotation, 

 *' completely restored to the land, the latter would have preserved 

 " its fertility to the fullest extent \ the gain of the farmer would, 

 ** indeed, have been reduced by the repurchase of the alienated 

 " constituents of the soil, but it would thereby have been rendered 

 " permanent. 



** The constituents of the soil are the farmer's capital, the 

 " elements of food supplied by the atmosphere the interest of this 

 " capital J by means of the former he produces the latter. In 

 " selling the produce of his farm he alienates a portion of his 

 " capital and the interest ; in returning to the land the constituents 



