98 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Our fourth point is, Will the waste of all material put back on the 

 land in the most advantageous wsij, keep up its fertility? No, not 

 if every particle is saved. According to the last census, there were 

 in Massachusetts 942,000 acres of tillage land, while the whole 

 quantity of fai-m yard manure, or fertilizers from the refuse of the 

 crops, was but 422,000 cords — an average of only about one and a 

 half loads to the acre. We must look outside of this source. Is 

 there any substitute? The lecturer answered, Yes, — it is proved, 

 not specially by him, or by Lawes and Gilbert, or by Liebig, or by 

 Dr. Nichols, but by the individual experiments of each, that other 

 substances will do the work of feeding plants. 



Farmers ought to take in the fact that plants never feed on 

 manure or soil as such ; these become nourishment to plants only 

 when such compound substances are taken to pieces, and separated 

 into their original elements. We speak of piles, cords, or loads of 

 manure, but plants never feed in bulk, either on phosphate in 

 nodules, or magnesia in talc, or soda in mica, or potash in feldspar. 

 These materials are of no use in those forms. The soil must be 

 changed ; yard manure must be changed, and that is the reason why 

 we till our soils. Will not potash in the form of oxide of potassium 

 be worth just as much to the plant as in the form of yard manure? 

 Science and common sense say. Yes. There is no other conclusion 

 to come to. In fact it must be better because more readily access- 

 ible. 



Up to this point scientists and practical men agree — chemicals 

 wiU ahswer the same purpose for plant food as yard manure. 

 Are we read}" to act on this con elusion ? Pure science does not 

 amount to much unless we can put it into practice on the land. 

 We want to go on to our inaccessible, barren hills with substances 

 which will enable us to do there what we do in our home lots with 

 yard manure. 



We have a soil that begins to fail. Why? Is it because every- 

 thing that plants feed on is gone, or because only one or two ele- 

 ments are gone ? A plant uses large quantities of potash, which is 

 very scarce and very hard to develop from potash feldspar. In our 

 New England soils the first element deficient is potash, and when 

 this is gone crops refuse to grow. Sterility may result from the 

 absence of one element, and connnon sense says, snp[)ly the miss- 

 ing element. Science further tells us to analyze the soil, to ascer- 

 tain what the missing element is, and this is also good common sense, 



