No. 4.] SOIL FERTILITY. 147 



that thei'e are certain classes of crops that assimilate from 

 the great storehouse — the air — a certain portion of their 

 nitrogen, so we can leave some part or all of it out. But 

 when we come to the mineral ingredients, I believe we should 

 return them. I believe we owe it not only to ourselves and 

 to our children but to the State to preserve the fertility of 

 our soils as far as it lies within our power to do so. That 

 man is a good citizen who builds up his farm and preserves 

 its fertility, not only for himself but for posterity ; and any 

 man who comes here and tells you that j^ou can leave some- 

 thing out, particularly the potash, is advising you to follow 

 a wrong principle, in my judgment. You can no doubt 

 leave it out in many cases, but you are robbing the soil by 

 just so much. In a word, you arc taking the patrimony 

 that belongs to your son, as well as reducing your own 

 resources. AYe had a talk here yesterday about keeping 

 our sons on the farm. I think a good many of them would 

 have stayed on the farm if their fathers and grandfathers had 

 not robbed it before they were born. 



I am very glad that the doctor has spoken about the dig- 

 nity of the business. I deplore misrepresentation on the 

 part of any one. I am very happy to say that Massachusetts 

 has done more to develop the fertilizer industry along right 

 lines and to place it on a higher level than any State in the 

 Union. Professor Stockbridge and President Clark went 

 to our Legislature thirty years ago, and secured the passage 

 of a law which in effect requires the manufacturer to " state 

 what he sells, and sell what he states." That law was taken 

 as the model for every fertilizer inspection law in the United 

 States, and it raised not only the standard of the business, 

 but of the men engaged in it. It was also Stockbridge, 

 Clark and Goessmann and their fricnids who organized the 

 experiment station at Amherst. It was started to solve just 

 such problems as we have discussed here to-day. From 

 the Amherst station and the New Haven station there have 

 sprung forty-two experiment stations in this country ; and 

 out of these stations has grown the enlarged and im]:)rovod 

 Department of Agriculture at AYashingtoii, which is doing 

 so much for the advancement of agriculture. 



