FARMING AND ROTATION OF CROPS. 71 



In tlio first place, a tenant lias tlie power to 

 evade tlie (pantity of artificial manure he had 

 promised to expend in lieu of the fodder sold. 



In the second place, I know to my cost that 

 artificial manure is as liable as other things to 

 vary in strength and quality, and also that a 

 cheap, bad article may bo substituted for a much 

 better one, and superficially cloak a very grievous 

 error. 



Artificial maimre applied to land reminds me 

 of dram-drinking in man. It is but a short-lived 

 flash of excitement to the one as to the other, 

 —wholesome only for a time when diluted with 

 water, or subjected to rain, and liable to be lost 

 in' too much heat and dust, or too heavy a 

 deluge from storm and cloud. There is nothing 

 like the old-fashioned farm-yard manure. Plant 

 two rows of potatoes side by side. When you 

 dig them, there is still left in the ground, and 

 holding tlie mould together, the remnants of the 

 rotten straw, still pregnant with the nourishment 

 of rich decay, while in the runks that had re- 

 ceived the artificial dust, not one vestige of it 

 remains — it has been washed away, blown away, 

 or been utterly consumed by the crop as a 



