No. 4.] SOIL FERTILITY. 155 



will be wasted ; and we must sell those things which take 

 the least from the farm, — our butter and milk and sui>ar, — 

 and feed on the farm those thino-s that will briu"- back to it 

 what has been taken out. The American farmer will go for- 

 ward in the improvement of his farm, in the increasing of his 

 profits, and in that moral agriculture of which I hav e spoken, 

 which will leave his fields in a better condition than he found 

 them. 



Dr. Jordan. I will not wear^^ you one moment, but I 

 don't want to be considered unpatriotic, or as traitorous to 

 the best interests of my country. Mr. Bowker made an 

 appeal to your patriotism, in which sentiment I most heartily 

 join ; but there is a practical side to patriotism. We have 

 at Geneva an Onondaga clay which we find contains 100,000 

 tons of potash per acre, to the depth of 1 foot. Now, sup- 

 posing I adopt the patriotic point of view in feeding the 

 plant, and add every year to that 100,000 tons as much as 

 the crops take out, I shall have made amends to the amount 

 of 100,000 tons ; but if I do not replace what the crops take 

 out, and in the course of a century I have reduced that pot- 

 ash to nothing, I wouldn't have to do any more than I did 

 in the beginning, and that is, add what I took out. So 

 I don't really see how my grandson, if 1 had one, would 

 have to do any more than to add what the crops had taken 

 out, even if I took half of it out. Perhaps my logic is bad, 

 but really my patriotism is all right, and I think my logic 

 is. as good as my patriotism. 



Mr. Bowker. Is that potash all available ? 



Dr. Jordan. Oh, no ; but we find at present it is avail- 

 able to the extent of good crops ; and when the time comes 

 that it isn't, if I add all the crops have taken out, I think I 

 will have added enough, and I don't expect I will have to 

 do it for fifty years. 



Adjourned. 



Evening Session. 



The evening session was held at 8.15 o'clock. First Vice- 

 President Sessions in tln^ chair. The gathering was in the 

 nature of a reception to the Board of Agriculture and others 



