OUR PRODUCING INDUSTRIES. 61 



keep his land in condition to continually produce such crops, he 

 must continually supply the loss. If milk is taken as his market 

 product, he should be aware that in this article he is sending 

 away a concentration of all the finest, best elements of the soil's 

 fertility, both mineral and nitrogenous, and the land won't long 

 bear the drain, without losing its power to produce those fine, 

 succulent grasses necessary to produce milk. If he make cheese, 

 it is but little better, and the exported material must be supplied 

 with some sort of fertilizer. If butter is his chosen product for 

 sale, and his skimmed milk is consumed at home, he has little 

 care to take about depleting his soil, but must watch with closest 

 scrutiny the process of manufacturing his product, feed judi- 

 ciously and kindly care for his stock, while he grows as rich as 

 the golden balls he sends to market. For this crop takes almost 

 nothing of the mineral elements of fertility from the soil, but is 

 composed chiefly of carbon, which the acid of the air will supply 

 to the herbage of his fields without thought or care of him. 



If, owing to circumstances, he chooses to enter the lists and 

 compete in the beef market with the Western farmer, let him 

 purchase of that farmer or somebody else mature animals, not 

 to grow, but simply to fatten upon his pastures or in his stalls, 

 and his profit will come quickly and in satisfactory amount, and 

 he takes from his land little else but carbon in the fat he puts on 

 the carcass purchased. If his taste and his farm incline him to 

 try his skill and intelligence in growing stock, let him select 

 some one of our thoroughbred breeds, and rear for a live market 

 (and here, at the present time, is one of our most inviting fields 

 of culture). But he is actually making up into animal form, 

 into bones, muscles and tissues, the choicest elements of the plant- 

 food of the soil, to be carried away, and which he must return in 

 grain purchased to facilitate their growth, or in lime, potash, 

 phosphoric acid and nitrogenous materials, or the land will ere 

 long cease to yield its increase. 



If the farmer has a love for it, he will find in fruit culture a 

 large field in which to exercise his skill ; for in some form it is 

 fast becoming a staple article of consumption, and ordinarily 

 the demand is far beyond the supply. Besides the care of the 

 plants and the harvesting and marketing of the fruit, no great 

 attention is needed. A crop of fruit depletes the soil but 

 little compared with our cultivated crops, and needs only a 



