FEEDING THE AFTER-MATH. 161 



spring and produce flower and fruit. That is what happens to 

 every one of our plants. The other purpose is, to act as a 

 mulch or covering for the land. Now if, after it has done its 

 work of storing up sugar and starch in the roots of the plant, 

 you mow it all ofif, and those grass roots are protected during 

 the winter by the snow, you will have just as much grass the 

 next spring as if you had not mowed it. But if you take that 

 grass ofif, and do not leave it there to decompose, you have taken 

 away just so much material — you have sent one check to the 

 bank — and your ground will not last so many years as it would 

 if you left the grass there, any more than my friend's bank ac- 

 count will last him as many years, if he draws a thousand dol- 

 lars a day, as it will if he makes no drafts upon the bank. 

 When you have proved the contrary, you have proved perpetual 

 motion ; you have proved that you can take away a thing and 

 have it at the same time. That dope uot prove at all that it is 

 not the best and cheapest thing to do. If that were so, it hav- 

 ing been proved that you exhaust the soil by taking off a crop, 

 you might say you must never take ofif one. Oh, no. My 

 friend Dr. Loring would agree that it takes ofif some of the ma- 

 terial, but he would say that the best thing you can do is to 

 take it off. I do not have any controversy with him at all on 

 that point ; but I say, you can only do that when you have your 

 farm in a high state of cultivation. Many of our fields need 

 every single particle of the after-math to protect the roots of 

 the grass during the winter, and if you put your cattle in there 

 you are doing immense harm. But if you keep up your farms 

 as you ought, and as Dr. Loring and Prof. Stockbridge would 

 say that you ought, so that there comes up a very abundant 

 after-math, then you may take it off with profit, because there 

 may be so much as to smother the grass the next spring if it is 

 allowed to remain. 



I believe fully that we have very much to learn, and all these 

 discussions show me how much I have got to learn. But 1 

 want to repeat once more, that the West is not determined to 

 sell your breadstufifs without being paid for them. 



Dr. LoEiNG. I suppose there is nothing more gratifying than 



to find one's opinions endorsed. There are three points that 



have been brought up here this morning to which I desire to 



allude in a slight way, and they are points upon which I have 



21 



