394 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



half Imrrels, for in.stance, arc placed in a convenient location 

 and lilled with soil from the field we wish to experiment 

 with, and the desired amount of these elements mixed with 

 the soil in the tubs, and any crop desired planted. Here 

 moisture may be controlled at will, and its effect upon the 

 different fertilizers noted. These experiments should be 

 tried upon different soils of the farm and upcni difi'erent 

 crops. The results from one experiment will not be suf- 

 ficient ; they should be continued through a series of years 

 and under varied circumstances and conditions, until in the 

 course of time the farmer may come to know something of 

 the requirements of his own particular soil. Then may he 

 exclaim with the poet : — 



" Nature is to me a living thing, 

 Food to the heart and beauty to the eye ; 

 These jjlants, these fiow'rs, the autumn's mellow sky, 

 Awake the moral thought and sympathy." 



While, in addition to knowledge gained by these experi- 

 ments, he will learn much of value from the experiments and 

 investigations of others in regard to the composition and 

 value of the different brands of plant food in the market as 

 well as of the chemical composition of his crops, he must 

 never expect to master the whole book of nature. After a 

 lifetime of careful investigation he may well doubt his al)ility 

 to advise another, for in the end he must realize with the 

 great philosopher that he has been able to gather only a few 

 pebbles upon the shore of the great ocean of knowledge. 

 But he will become more and more convinced that farming, 

 like war, can never be learned from books alone, but rather 

 by actual conflicts in the field. To reclaim the thousands of 

 New England hillside farms that have been allowed to de- 

 cline, to bring ao-riculture info the fore-front among the 

 gainful industries engaging the attention of our })eople, we 

 must rear a class of intelligent men and women, educated 

 both in the schools and upon the farm. They must be both 

 capitalists and laborers and must adapt a new and an intensi- 

 fied agriculture to the soil and climate of the section. 

 While in the past the agricultural prosperity of other more 

 fertile sections of our country may have overshadowed New 



