132 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



three so-called essential elements, but is forced to consider 

 the subject from that broader point of view which recog- 

 nizes as a fertilizer anything which tends to make the soil 

 more fertile and capable of producing better and larger 

 crops. Too many farmers are to-day buying fertilizers be- 

 yond their absolute needs, for the reason that proper atten- 

 tion is not paid to caring for their stable manure. Too 

 frequently this is the result of carelessness and shiftlessness. 

 He who has not learned that the chief value of stable 

 manure lies in the liquid portion, and has not taken steps to 

 avoid its undue waste is not, to-day, worthy of the title 

 farmer. Again, the lazy man, who, to borrow a phrase 

 from Professor Roberts, has not learned to "tickle the 

 land" by tillage, but tries to compensate for it by buying 

 commercial fertilizers, is no honor to the noble calling of 

 agriculture. There are men of another class, who recognize 

 that agricultural plants cannot be produced without drawing 

 certain kinds of plant food from the soil ; they forget, how- 

 ever, that weeds are made from the same sort of stuff, and 

 must therefore be eradicated, to leave food for useful plants. 

 Since Rhode Island is free from this class of farmers, pre- 

 sumably, they must all have moved over the line into 

 Massachusetts ! 



As a result of the vindication of the much-abused Ville 

 and the annihilation by Atwater, Hellriegel and Wilfarth of 

 the experimental evidence which had been brought forward 

 by Boussingault, Lawes and Gilbert, and Pugh, to prove that 

 plants are unable to assimilate atmospheric nitrogen, there 

 is now placed before the agriculturist the manner in which, 

 through the aid of the legumes and certain other plants, he 

 can unlock and draw at least a portion of the nitrogen sup- 

 ply for the farm from nature's vast aerial storehouse. The 

 wide-awake farmer of to-day who would not be outstripped 

 by his competitors should learn to know and utilize well the 

 clovers, peas, cow-peas, soy or soja beans, vetches, serra- 

 della and other plants which may be profitably employed in 

 gathering stores of nitrogen. He who has not already 

 learned to husband his farm manure, to "tickle" his soil, 

 destroy weeds at the right time and make use of leguminous 

 crops, is not yet sufiicicntly out of the dark to be looking 



