MANAGEMENT OF MANURES OI7 GRAIN-FARMS. 121 



naturally drained. And though Mr. Johnston w.is always a good 

 farmer, yet he says he " never made money until he commenced to 

 drain." The accumulated fertility in the land could then be made 

 available by good tillage, and from that day to this, his land has 

 been growing richer and richer. And, in fact, the same is true of 

 Mr. Geddes' farm. It is richer land to-day than when first plowed, 

 while there is one field that for seventy years has had no manure 

 applied to it, except plaster. How is this to be explained ? Mr. 

 Geddes would say it was due to clover and plaster. But this docs 

 not fully satisfy those who claim, (and truly), that " always taking 

 out of the meal-tub and never putting in, soon comes to the bot- 

 tom." The clover can add nothing to the land, that it did not get 

 from the soil, except organic matter obtained from the atmosphere, 

 and the plaster furnishes little or nothing except Hmo and sulphu- 

 ric acid. There are all the other ingredients of plant-food to be 

 accounted for phosphoric acid, potash, socla, magnesia, etc. A 

 crop of clover, or corn, or wheat, or barley, or oats, will not come 

 to perfection unless every one of these elements is present in the 

 soil in an available condition. Mr. Geddes has not furnished a 

 single ounce of any one of them. 



" Where do they come from ? " 



I answer, from the soil itself. There is probably enough of these 

 elements in the soil to last ten thousand years ; and if we return to 

 the soil all the straw, chaff, and bran, and sell nothing but fine flour, 

 meat, butter, etc., there is probably enough to last a million years, 

 and you and I need not trouble ourselves with speculations as to 

 what will happen after that time. Nearly all our soils are practi- 

 cally inexhaustible. But of course these elements are not in an 

 available condition. If they were, the rains would wash them all 

 into the ocean. They are rendered available by a kind of fermen- 

 tation. A manure-heap packed as hard and solid as a rock would 

 not decay ; but break it up, make it fine, turn it occasionally so as 

 to expose it to the atmosphere, and with the proper degree of mois- 

 ture and heat it will ferment rapidly, and all its elements will 

 soon become available food for plants. Nothing has been created 

 by the process. It was all there. We have simply made it availa- 

 ble. So it is with the soil. Break it up, make it fine, turn it 

 occasionally, expose it to the atmosphere, and the elements it con- 

 tains become available. 



I do not think that Mr. Geddes' land is any better, naturally, 

 than yours or mine. We can all raise fair crops by cultivating 

 the land thoroughly, and by never allowing a weed to grow. On 

 Mr. Lawes' experimental wheat-field, the plot that has never re- 

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