ROTATION OF CROPS. 283" 



"of the soil removed in the crops he simply restores his capital 

 " to his field. 



" Every system of farming based on the spoliation of the land 

 " leads to poverty. The country in Europe w^hich, in its time, 

 " most abounded in gold and silver was, nevertheless, the poorest. 

 *' All the treasures of Mexico and Peru brought to Spain by the 

 '' richly laden silver fleets melted avi^ay In the hands of the nation, 

 "because the Spaniards had forgotten, or no longer practiced, the 

 " art of making the money return to them which they had put 

 *' into circulation in commerce to supply their wants ; because 

 " they did not know how to produce articles of exchange required 

 " by other nations who were in possession of their money. There 

 " is no other way of maintaining the wealth of a nation. 



" It is not the land in itself that constitutes the farmer's wealth, 

 " but it is in the constituents of the soil, which serve for the 

 " nutrition of plants, that this wealth truly consists. By means of 

 " these constituents alone, he is enabled to produce the conditions 

 *' indispensable to man for the preservation of the temperature of 

 " his body, and of his ability to work. Rational Agriculture^ in 

 " contradistinction to the spoliation system of farming, is based 

 " upon the principle of restitution ; by giving back to his fields 

 " the conditions of their fertility the farmer insures the perma- 

 " nence of the latter. 



" The deplorable effects of the spoliation system of farming are 

 *' nowhere more strikingly evident than in America, where the 

 " early colonists in Canada, in the State of New York, in Pennsyl- 

 "vania, Virginia, Maryland, etc.,- found tracts of land, which for 

 " many years, by simply plowing and sowing, yielded a succession 

 " of abundant wheat and tobacco harvests. No falling off in the 

 " weight or quality of the crops reminded the farmer of the ne- 

 " cessity of restoring to the land the constituents of the soil 

 " carried away in the produce. 



" We all know what has become of these fields. In less than 

 " two generations, though originally so teeming with fertility, they 

 " were turned into deserts, and, in many districts, brought to such 

 " a state of absolute exhaustion that, even now, after having lain 



