HOW TO RESTORE A WORN-OUT FARM. 39 



are favorable, cause rapid fermentation with the formation of car- 

 bonate of ammonia, and other soluble salts. Many of our soils, to 

 the depth 01 eight or ten inches, contain enough nitrogenous mat 

 terin an acre to produce two or three thousand pounds of ammonia. 

 By stirring the soil, and exposing it to the atmosphere, a small 

 portion of this nitrogen becomes annually available, and is taken 

 up by the growing crops. And it is so with the other eleme ts of 

 plant-food. Stirring the soil, then, is the basis of agriculture. It 

 has been said that we must return to the soil as much plant-food 

 as we take from it. If this were true, nothing could be sold from 

 the farm. What we should aim to do, is to develop as much as 

 possible of the plant-food that lies latent in the soil, and not to sell 

 in the form of crops, cheese, wool, or animals, any more of this 

 plant-food than we annually develop from the soil. In this way 

 the " condition " of the soil would remain the same. If we sell 

 less than we develop, the condition of the soil will improve. 



By " condition," I mean the amount of available plant-food in the 

 soil. Nearly all our farms are poorer in plant-food to-day than 

 when first cleared of the original forest, or than they were ten, 

 fifteen, or twenty years later. In other words, the plants and 

 animals that have been sold from the farm, have carried off a con- 

 siderable amount of plant-food. WG have taken far more nitro- 

 gen, phosphoric acid, potash, etc., out of the soil, than we have 

 returned to it in the shape of manure. Consequently, the soil must 

 contain less and less of plant -food every year. And yet, while this 

 is a self-evident fact, it is, nevertheless, true that many of these 

 self -same farms arc more productive now than when first cleared, 

 or at any rate more productive than they were twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago. 



Sometime ago, the Deacon and I visited the farm of Mr. Dewey, 

 of Monroe Co., N. Y. He is a good farmer. He does not practice 

 " high farming " in the sense in which I use that term. His is a 

 good example of what I term slow farming. He raises large crops, 

 but comparatively few of them. On his farm of 300 acres, he 

 raises 40 acres of wheat, 17 acres of Indian corn, and 23 acres of 

 oats, barley, potatoes, roots, etc. In other words, he lias 80 acres 

 in crops, and 220 acres in grass no. permanent grass. He lets it 

 lie in grass five, six, seven, or eight years, as he deems best, and 

 then breaks it np, and plants it to corn. The land he intends to 

 plant to corn next year, has been in grass for seven years. He 

 will put pretty much all his manure on this land. After corn, it 

 will be sown to oats, or barley ; then sown to wheat, and seeded 

 down again. It will then lie in grass three, four, five, six, or seven 



