FERTILIZERS. 13 



moisten it: while, on the other hand, when wet, it keeps 

 wet and cold too long for the health of vegetation. With- 

 out draining, manure is a waste on such soils. I once top- 

 dressed such a meadow for two or three years, to get but 

 wild dandelion, that was not worth the money. I deepened 

 the outlet, and now can cut three good crops of grass from 

 it every year. 



Humus holds a great store of carbonic acid ; which de- 

 composes the minerals in the soil, setting free potash and 

 phosphoric acid. It also holds latent nitrogen, sometimes 

 as high as three per cent, which is six times as much as 

 in average stable manure. This is made plant-food by the 

 application of lime or carbonate of potash. It is the great 

 argument for the use of barn manure in preference to 

 commercial fertilizers, that it forms humus ; but we can 

 gain the same end by turning under a grass or clover sod, 

 cow-pease, or a green crop, and these we can raise by com- 

 mercial fertilizers. 



Humus is not in itself plant-food. It is not necessary 

 for the yield of heavy crops. 



ARE FERTILIZERS BUT STIMULANTS? 



The old-fashioned farmer is apt to look askance on this 

 new-fangled fashion of manuring, call fertilizers " medi- 

 cine, stimulants," " a sure way to run out the land." 



To continually apply but a single one of the three ele- 

 ments which enter into the complete manure, and especially 

 if that one should be nitrogen, and for a series of years be 

 in marked excess of the other two, would in the end, sooner 

 or later, prove that the old farmer was right in his conclu- 

 sion, however faulty he might be in his reasoning. Let 

 me here emphasize the fact repeatedly proved, and that 

 squares with common sense ; viz., that the one of the three 



