JOHN p. NORTON'S ADDRESS. 395 



discovered a new way of more completely impoverishing the 

 soil. Exhaustion must come at last, and when it does, will be 

 so complete, that all idea of profitable renovation mast seem 

 nearly hopeless. The farmer, then, who cultivates largely by 

 the aid of green crops, should always add manures from foreign 

 sources, for the special purpose of restoring the inorganic sub- 

 stances, so largely carried away by his crops. Such manures 

 as ashes, bones, guano, lime, and plaster, would be those most 

 advantageously applied. 



Above all, when land has once been brought to a tolerable 

 state of fertility, it is necessary to avoid carefully anything 

 which may tend to exhaust it again. When it has begun to 

 improve, it should be kept always advancing. This is quite as 

 easy, and far cheaper, in the end. Let it always be remem- 

 bered, that for every dollar saved by letting land run down, 

 many must be spent to bring it up again. Unless the soil is 

 treated generously, the farmer must not feel disappointed, if he 

 does not receive generous returns. Manure produces less effect 

 on poor, worn-out land, than it does on that which is fertile, 

 and already well supplied ; ten loads of manure, with less la- 

 bor, will produce a far heavier crop on the one, than twenty 

 will do on the other. 



The time is fast approaching, in these Eastern States, when 

 the farmer will be obliged to treat his land liberally, or accom- 

 plish little more than to drag out his life, esteeming himself 

 well off, if he can make both ends of the year meet. The 

 coming generation will not be so content as the past have been, 

 to toil on in this unsatisfactory way. Indeed, the fruits of such 

 a condition of things have been for some time showing them- 

 selves ; our young men, in great numbers, go to the west, enter 

 into business, choose a profession, take anything, — the most 

 petty offices, and the most dependent situations, — rather than 

 wear away their energies and muscles, in sowing and gathering 

 such scanty crops as their fathers have done, and as are too fre- 

 quent in every neighborhood. 



But now, than this science of agriculture, what more attract- 

 ive, more interesting profession, can be offered them ? Here is 

 novelty enough for the most ardent, beauty enough for the 



