FERTILIZERS. 5 



not wasted. The soil of Massachusetts could doubtless 

 grow food sufficient to feed a population of a million and 

 a half of inhabitants, without a spoonful of manure being 

 needed beyond her own natural resources, and continue to 

 do this through all time, could, from the beginning, all ex- 

 cremental waste made from the consumption of such food 

 have been returned to it. We say that soil is an accumu- 

 lation of broken rock, decomposed minerals, and disor- 

 ganized organic matter, the waste of Nature's workshop, 

 a dead mass. And so it is, from the organic stand-point. 



But there is a chemical as well as an organic life ; and 

 from this stand-point, in the loam we turn with the plough, 

 apparently so inert and dead, there is a life of unceasing 

 activity throughout the growing season, which rests only 

 when paralyzed by the frosts of winter. So complicated 

 is it in its action and re-action, its marriages and divorces, 

 in utter disregard of all moral laws in seeking its affini- 

 ties, that it presents some of the most complicated prob- 

 lems to be found in physical science. The utmost that 

 has been attained is the possible and probable. The man 

 who could tell the world exactly the composition of a rod 

 of ground, and the daily changes that took place in it 

 during the growing season, and how these affect the ma- 

 nures applied, and how they affect it, and how the results 

 of these actions and re-actions affect the growing crop, 

 would take his place among the immortals without a dis- 

 senting voice from among his fellow-men. 



Chemical action is mineral instinct, or, more accurately, 

 a demonstration of the existence of such instinct. 



Higher than mineral instinct stands plant-life. Plants 

 have more than life, they have intelligent volition. Plant- 

 life builds up the structure ; while plant instinct, active at 

 the little spongioles, dissolves from the rocks, or selects 

 from the soil, with unerring accuracy, the materials needed. 



