56 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



HOW TO BE BETTER FARMERS 



From an Address before the Worcester West Agricultural Societj', Sept. 17, 1857. 



BY JOHN A. NASH. 



There was a time in the progress of the earth to the condi- 

 tion in which wc find it, when its whole surface was nothing 

 but rock. From the disintegration of this rock comes all the 

 loose material which covers the earth from a few inches to 

 several hundred feet in thickness. 



In the rocky sliell of the earth arc contained all the inorganic 

 elements of plants, as the- organic elements are contained 

 in the air. When the rocks become disintegrated, the plant 

 food they contained is commingled with the soil formed from 

 them. Of fifteen elements, which go to make up the plant, 

 eleven esist in the soil and four in the air. That some of the 

 former exist also in the air, in very small quantities, is possible ; 

 and it is quite certain that the latter exist in the soil, as far as 

 it is penetrated by the air. The inorganic elements of plants 

 — those that are indestructible by fire, and constitute the ash 

 after the fire has consumed what it can — are drawn mainly 

 from the ground ; while the organic elements — all of a plant 

 that can be burned away — come from the air. Both these 

 classes of elements are essential to the growth of plants. 

 Standing with its roots in the ground and its leaves in the air, 

 the plant has a lien on both, and from both draws these ele- 

 ments, which, as elaborated in its vegetable organism, are to 

 perfect itself, and which as further elaborated in the animal 

 organisili arc to constitute the entire animal body. 



Although the material, consolidated first into vegetable and 

 then into animal forms, comes largely from the air, yet consid- 

 ering the air to be but a part and parcel of the planet wc 

 inhabit, it is strictly true to say that all plants primarily, and 



