30 MODERN HIGH FARMING. 



No better arguments can possibly be adduced in favor of soil re- 

 constitution, than the figures here given ; for they seem to us to be 

 a direct appeal from the plants themselves, for the administration of 

 that food without which they must gradually starve and finally dis- 

 appear. 



We have, therefore, to study with increased earnestness that 

 problem which has already been so long occupying the minds of 

 agricultural scientists; the question of "how we are to arrest the 

 marked falling off in the quantity and quality of our crops, by the 

 impoverishment and gradual exhaustion of our soils ; and how, 

 where, and when we are to apply those elements of fresh vigor and 

 life, which the discoveries of chemistry have placed at our command. 

 When a man who has hitherto never been sick, finds that his health 

 is beginning to fail, he, if possessed of common sense, calls in his 

 doctor, who after careful diagnosis discovers the root of the evil and 

 prescribes a remedy. Is it not evident that if he would know what 

 to do for his soils to make them productive or amenable to culture, 

 or to restore them to their past state of fertility, the farmer should 

 first of all be made acquainted with their composition their physi- 

 cal and chemical properties? 



We have ever advocated the theory exposed at the commence- 

 ment of this work, that no successful results can attend any attempts 

 at scientific culture, if such attempts are made in ignorance of the 

 elements we seek to improve ; and for this reason we maintain 

 that the only certain guide to successful cultivation, is the complete 

 chemical analysis of the soil, joined to a thorough knowledge of the cli- 

 matological and other surrounding conditions. With these at his com- 

 mand, the experienced chemist can throw the broad light of day on 

 all the points which have been hitherto obscure, and can suggest 

 methods of practical treatment, at once productive of a radical 

 amelioration. 



It has been and still is urged in some quarters, that no informa- 

 tion procured in the laboratory, can be so perfect as that acquired by 

 constant observation on the ground, and by continuous practical 

 manipulation of the soil ! 



