142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



days to have some of you come and fill that treasury up. I 

 assure you, it is pretty much exhausted at the present time. 



The good old State of Massachusetts saw fit, in her wisdom, 

 to give us fifty thousand dollars last winter, and I hope you will 

 all feel interested enough in the college to do what you can to 

 induce the coming legislature to give us another fifty thousand 

 dollars, which I think justly belongs to us. This Common- 

 wealth has adopted the college as her own, and certainly I 

 should be ashamed to adopt anything of so much importance 

 and then leave it to take care of itself. 



Col. Stone. It is not an adopted child ; it is a legitimate 

 child. It is the only child Massachusetts ever had. 



Dr. DuRFEE. Yes, sir, and she is solemnly bound to provide 

 for it, according to her own laws. 



But I will not detain this audience this morning with any 

 protracted remarks. I ])elieve the first business this morning 

 is a lecture from our good friend Prof. Stockbridge, who is, I 

 can say, a fair representative of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College, and I want you to receive him as such. I therefore 

 take the liberty of introducing to you Prof. Stockbridge. 



THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 



BY PROF. LEVI STOCKBRIDGE. 



The great effort of a majority of the cultivators of the soil, 

 in all countries and in all ages of the world, has been, appar- 

 ently, to grow large crops perpetually without returning to the 

 land the elements of plant-growth carried away. In all coun- 

 tries, and under all circumstances, the result has in the end 

 been a failure. The soil and its owners have alike come to 

 poverty, and migration to new and unspoiled fields, to secure 

 the means of sustenance a necessity. With this fact written 

 indelil)ly on the page of history, men have not in this regard 

 become wise. The generation of the present, instead of profit- 

 ing by the experience of its predecessors, has followed in their 

 identical footsteps, repeated their blunders and with identical 

 results. By failure of crops, by deterioration and poverty of 

 soil, they have not learned that large crops deplete the soil 

 more rapidly than small ones, that he who sells his crops, sells 

 his land, as surely as he who conveys it by deed of warranty. 



