H. TRACY'S ADDRESS. 379 



from it, without any expense or labor for improvements. 

 Buildings, fences, and fields were all used for present advantage, 

 that he might pocket the proceeds. The soil would soon be 

 exhausted, and then the farm was sold for what he could get, 

 and another purchase made. By this means he obtained wealth, 

 just as any miser will get wealth. But if all cultivators of the 

 soil were to pursue a similar course, there would be no rich 

 farms, and the farmers would soon be in the condition of the 

 man in the fable, who possessed a goose that laid daily a golden 

 egg. In order to obtain at once all the wealth, he killed his 

 goose, and showed himself the greater goose of the two. The 

 man who starves his farm or feeds it sparingly, is but little 

 wiser. The man who cultivates more land than he can manure 

 well, is like him who keeps more cows than he can pasture. 

 Such an one must estimate the value of his dairy, not by the 

 quantity of milk he obtains, but by the number of cows he 

 milks. 



The other remark in reference to the application of manure 

 to the soil, is, that it should be thoroughly incorporated with 

 the soil. The plough and the harrow may be used to advan- 

 tage far more than they are. Thorough tillage is as necessary 

 as abundant manuring. It is believed that the after crops are 

 as much benefited by this, as the first crops. I infer this from 

 what I have myself noticed. Some eight years since, I plough- 

 ed a field of two acres, and manured it with fifty loads of long 

 manure, which was spread upon the surface, and ploughed in. 

 This field I planted with corn, except forty square rods re- 

 served for carrots. Upon these forty rods, after two or three 

 weeks, I spread six or seven loads of short or well rotted ma- 

 nure, and ploughed again. It was then well harrowed and 

 sowed with carrots. The following year the whole was laid 

 to grass, and the forty rods from that time to this, have been 

 marked by a more vigorous and abundant growth of grass, than 

 any other part of the field. I attribute this to a more thorough 

 tillage, as well as to a larger supply of manure. 



A story is told of a man who owned a vineyard, that illus- 

 trates the good eff'ect of thorough tillage. He had two daugh- 

 ters. Upon the marriage of the first he gave her as a dower. 



