388 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The fertility of our exhausted lands may be restored, or 

 increased in two practicable ways, viz. : By feeding farm 

 stock and applying their voidings to the soil, or by buying 

 commercial fertilizers and applying them directly upon our 

 fields. The farmer's own particular circumstances should 

 decide his method. Whichever method is adopted we are 

 co-workers with nature. And here I would remark that the 

 results will depend very little upon luck and in no degree 

 upon magic, but success will come only through a proper 

 combination of " brain and brawn." 



Years ago I read a little book upon " High Farming with- 

 out Manure." The object of the author evidently was to 

 show that something could be grown from nothing. In later 

 years I have seen too many misled by this fallacy. Here I 

 call to mind a little story heard when a boy, yet it has never 

 been forgotten. The custom of an eastern country was that 

 after planting the seed in the soil the priest should go forth 

 upon the fields and invoke the blessings of Heaven for an 

 abundant harvest. Coming to the boundaries of one field, he 

 looked upon the surface and turned away in silence. When 

 asked his reason he said : " It is no use to ask for a bless- 

 ing unless they put on more manure." We must bear in 

 mind that something of the same laws that pertain to the 

 feeding of our farm stock apply to the feeding of farm crops. 

 They all eat in their own peculiar way. The food of all 

 must be prepared and placed within reach of each, according 

 to its kind, that it may be received and assimilated. In 

 speaking of increasing the fertility of lands, the mistaken 

 idea sometimes gains possession that plant food can be made 

 or created, while the most that we can do is to save, accu- 

 mulate, utilize. Absorbents must be freely used. Further 

 than that we never have realized profit to compensate for 

 the labor in interchanging soils for fertilizing purposes from 

 one locality to another upon the farm. A more economical 

 method may be found to enrich the high lands, while the low 

 lands, if properly drained, will in time require all their plant 

 food where deposited by nature. On many farms there are 

 quite extensive bogs, producing only the coarsest and most 

 innutritions grasses ; yet there are present rich deposits 

 of plant food, the accumulations of ages, annual deposits 



