384 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



the exclusion of April and May showers, is to get a backward 

 growth that wiU tell powerfully against the harvest. As a 

 sponge full of water can take up no more, so earth, saturated 

 with this element, retains the water it has, and the surplus runs 

 off over its surface. 



Having wisely provided against any excess of moisture in 

 Avet seasons as far as practicable, and the want of it in dry 

 Aveather, by the facility with which it ascends from below up- 

 ward through a mellow, pervious soil, by capillary attraction, 

 the next important point is to learn loJuj it is, that under a com- 

 mon system of culture, an acre of good land will yield three or 

 five times more of grass or grain, than an acre of poor land. 

 It is now generally conceded by all that have thoroughly in- 

 vestigated the elements of fertility, that their peculiar proper- 

 ties are pretty well understood. Irrespective of all names, they 

 are the precise things consumed by nature in forming all culti- 

 vated plants ; and the essential difference between a productive 

 and an unproductive soil, consists in this : A productive soil con- 

 tains in a form soluble in rain water, every kind of atoms required 

 in the growth of a perfect wheat or corn plant. An unproductive 

 soil lacks in part or in whole, similar atoms in an available con- 

 dition. Other causes, however, than the absence of fertilizing 

 elements, may induce partial or complete sterility ; such as an 

 excess of the salts of iron, like copperas water, or an excess of 

 any acid, or other soluble mineral. It is important to know 

 that too much of the food of plants in or near the surface of the 

 earth, operates as a surfeit or poison. Suppose one had a large 

 mass of rotting wheat. It would be valuable manure to apply 

 to a field on which this grain was to be grown ; but seed 

 planted in the manure heap, would produce an indifferent crop, 

 if any. It is impossible for a practical husbandman to make 

 and use manure with the best economy, unless he understands 

 its peculiar properties, and the fertilizing power of each ingre- 

 dient therein. That corn plants, their stems, leaves, cobs and 

 seeds, will form manure from which more corn can be produced, 

 every body knows ; but what constituents in the plant are least 

 abundant in ordinary soils, and therefore most valuable to be 

 restored to it, many corn-growers are not informed. Suppose 



