82 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



But he has not been alone. Others liave taken a similar course ; 

 and, supi)lementing the theory of the compost by an exact knowl- 

 edge of their land (usually more fertile than that on which Mr. 

 Furman did his ^vork) many iSouthern farmers have achieved equal 

 or greater results. This is one of the beneficent results of liberty. 



The heaviestcrop, of which I ever obtained a record, was raised 

 near Memphis, Tennessee, by digging a hole with a post auger as 

 if to set a fence post; filling that with a well adjusted compost to 

 sustain the tap-root of the cotton plant, and adding thereto a little 

 surface manure to nourish the horizontal roots, which serve to hold 

 the plant in position more than they do to feed it. 



Now let us turn from this example toother experiments (of very 

 recent date, especially in this country) in which the nourishment of 

 man in the cheapest and best manner has been the objective point. 

 In this, as in all else that I may have to say to you, I speak from 

 observation more than by personal knowledge ; and I shall only at- 

 tempt to coordinate the respective lines of investigation, and per- 

 haps to theorize a little upon the conclusions to which they seem 

 to lead. I have not the least id^a whether much of what I may 

 liave to say may not be very old and trite, or whether it will be as 

 novel to you as it was to me when my statistics led me to consider 

 other points of the food question. 



It is but a few years since the scientists of Germany and then 

 those of England turned their attention to the food question, and 

 attempted to reduce the requisite proportions of the different chem- 

 ical ingredients of food to a scientific formula. Having established 

 certain data in respect to the relative proportions of nitrogenous 

 material or protein, of fats, and of carbo-hydrates or starchy 

 materials which are essential to the wholesome nutrition of work- 

 ing people, — they next appear to have sought for the materials in 

 which these several nutrients are to be found at the lowest cost in 

 money. So important has this investigation become in German}' 

 where a poor soil is called upon to sustain an over-dense popula- 

 tion, and where, even if all men were productive units, there 

 might not be enough for a good subsistence, and yet where one in 

 about twenty-two (some authorities make it one in sixteen and a 

 half of all men of arms-bearing age) is called upon to waste his 

 time in a standing army, even during the condition of passive war 

 which in Europe is called peace, while the labor of another one in 

 every twenty-two mustgoto sustain himself and the idle soldier, — 



