56 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Now, when you undertake to make perfect manures from the 

 salts or from the ashes of a plant, you are at fault, because you 

 have not the appliances for appropriating these elements which 

 nature has. You cannot penetrate into the mystery of the 

 veins and arteries of the human system, or into tlie mysteries of 

 vegetable physiology, by which a tree is produced, so that you 

 can do it artificially ; you can only approximate to it. We can 

 only approximate to what are the best manures for certain vege- 

 tables and plants ; and therefore, when Mr. Hyde and Colonel 

 Wilder tell us that they tried this manure and that manure on 

 their pear-trees or their strawberries, we rely upon what they 

 say, because they have tested theory by experiment. But when 

 Colonel Wilder tells me that he would not apply salt, I tell him 

 that he has not lived yet on the hills of Berkshire ; but I hope 

 he may, and change that meagre climate of the eastern portion 

 of the State to the strong, health-giving influences of our Berk- 

 shire hills. 



Now, when you come to apply these things to the soil, you 

 have got to look at them just as the doctor looks at his patient. 

 If an allopathic doctor is called in to a person who is sick, the 

 first thing he does (I say it with all deference to my allopathic 

 friends) , is to get a bolus down his throat, and experiment upon 

 him, see how it affects him ; and after a while, by continually 

 experimenting, he may get hold of the right medicine. But, in 

 my opinion, the homoeopathists should be our exemplars in the 

 treatment of the soil, because they first inquire into the previ- 

 ous conditions of the man ; they ascertain, in the first place, 

 what hereditary influences he has derived from his parents ; 

 they inquire what have been his habits of life ; in what atmos- 

 phere he has lived ; they watch the condition of his blood, and 

 then they are able to bring out and apply the medicine which 

 will be most likely to restore the patient to health. So when 

 we apply these manures, we want to find out the condition of 

 the soil, what has been grown there, what elements are ex- 

 hausted, and taking all these things into consideration, we are 

 able to apply the manure specially adapted to meet the neces- 

 sities of the case. 



Now, as to this matter of salt. As the Professor has told us, 

 there is no question that it was used centuries ago as a manure, 

 by men who thought themselves as wise as we are — the Greeks 



