42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



do anvthino; else on this farm, o-et the teams out and 

 turn this hmd over:" and then about every three days I 

 wrote down to him to hustle round and harrow that 

 clover field. So he went to work and harrowed that field 

 thoroughly. Then again fertilizers were put on amounting 

 to twenty dollars, and now the wheat is in the storehouse. 

 I have the number of bushels, but I have not the money in 

 the bank. I have bargained it for seventy cents a bushel, 

 but again I sold the straw for $1G.30 a ton. I shall get 

 about one hundred and fifty dollars from that field for my 

 share. 



I am telling you this because I have come to your State to 

 try to benefit you, and as I came along it struck me that you 

 have not laid stress enough on culture, or getting out of the 

 soil all that is in it. If you leave it there and do not get it 

 out, it might just as well never have been there. You want 

 to get it into a crop, then into an animal, and then back 

 again to the soil. First the plant, then the animal, and then 

 the fertility to feed another plant, to feed another animal, to 

 feed another plant ; and so it goes on. As the three little 

 golden links go round, — i)lant, animal, fertility, — man 

 reaches in and tolls. And when this man says " Plant 

 clover," he is right, because that does not carry oft' any of 

 the farm. 



QuESTiox. Did the clover seed this time? 



Professor Roberts. Yes ; I got a good clover crop. 



Mr. Wm. Bancroft (of Chesterfield). I think this dis- 

 cussion is interesting, but in all candor 1 want to ask if there 

 is any farmer here who has undertaken to raise corn with 

 five loads of manure to the acre ? The gentleman says he 

 cultivated his corn ten days before it was up. Now, out in 

 the western ])art of the State, Avhere I live, if my corn was 

 not ui) in ten days it would never come up ; it would be 

 rotten. 



Professor Roberts. The gentleman misunderstood me. 

 I said four, six or ton days. We frequently })lant corn 

 in April in New York. I am not afraid to })lant it early. 

 I am not afraid to have the ground freeze a little after I plant 

 corn, if the ground is pr()})orly prepared. 



Mr. W. M. McIxTOSii (of Nantucket). I want to get a 



