THOMAS E. PAYSON'S ADDRESS. 211 



Here, most certainly, there is a wide field for improvement. 

 The Chinese are said to be familiar, not only with the relative 

 value and efficacy of manures, but to understand, and apply 

 without loss, that which is best fitted to stimulate and support 

 each kind of plant. With us, agricultural chemistry has made 

 rapid advances within a few years. Yet, in practice, I ques- 

 tion very much, whether the ancients were not better cul- 

 tivators of the soil than we are. " What are the elements of 

 good tillage ? " says Cato, the oldest Roman teacher of agricul- 

 ture. "To plough. What is the second? To plough. The 

 third is to manure. Study to have a large dunghill," says 

 he, " keep your compost carefully; when you carry it out, scat- 

 ter it and pulverize it." This was advice given one hundred 

 and fifty years before the Christian era, yet many of us are apt 

 to regard composting as a new discovery. Subsequent writers 

 advise the cultivator "not to carry out more manure than the 

 laborers can cover with the soil the same day, as exposure to 

 the sun does it great injury ; and they tell us that the farmers of 

 that day collected their manure and stored it in covered pits, so 

 as to check the escape of the drainage." How many farmers in 

 the county leave their manure exposed to sun, and air, and rain, 

 for half the year ! Are there not some who will tell you that it 

 is improved by the operation 1 



One powerful fertilizer, little thought of, and less cared for, 

 must, I am satisfied, sooner or later come into general use, and 

 that is liquid manure. Now, it is not considered worth the pains 

 of saving, but its value is ascertained beyond question. Take, for 

 instance, the house plant, which your wife, or your daughter, rears 

 with care. Water it with a solution of guano, no matter whether 

 brought from some distant island of the sea, or more cheaply 

 obtained from the floor of your pigeon-house — and what is the 

 effect ? At once it stands more erect, its leaves enlarge and as- 

 sume a deeper hue, and what may have been just now but a 

 sickly nondescript, seemingly out of season and out of place, 

 puts on the beauty and vigor of natural and luxuriant growth. 

 On a large scale, apply it to your grass-lands, and what will be 

 the result ? Do you say this is mere supposition, and that a 

 grain of experience is worth all the speculation in the world 1 



