FARMS. 103 



Judgment in the application of manures is quite as essential 

 as liberality. Bread is said to be the staff of life ; but perfec- 

 tion of physical growth in man cannot be secured by the exclu- 

 sive use of bread, even the best ; nor perfection of vegetable 

 growth by the application to the soil of ammonia only, or phos- 

 phate of lime, or any other one of the organic or inorganic sub- 

 stances that jointly contribute to the formation of^healthy and 

 vigorous plants. Manure from well-fed animals, in sufficient 

 quantities, more nearly compensates for the loss of the produc- 

 tive elements in soils, consequent on repeated cropping, than 

 any other single attainable fertilizer. But even this will fail to 

 maintain perpetual fertility through its deficiency in mineral 

 substances. If this is true of manure from such animals, what 

 shall be said of that from the ill-fed and poorly housed stock, 

 once so common, and even now seen occasionally, hovering 

 about the sheltered sides of buildings and fences, or reluctantly 

 pursuing the scattered wisps of coarse fodder, whirled by the 

 wind from the corner where it may have been thrown for their 

 morning or noonday meal. If any portion of the manure made 

 under such circumstances fails of being blown away or washed 

 away, its effect upon the soil to which it is applied will be very 

 similar to that of the food from which it is made upon the ani- 

 mals compelled to consume it. Time was when the possession 

 of large areas in the marshes on our coast and in tlie natural 

 meadows on our streams was considered by all farmers, whether 

 of large or small means, indispensable to the keeping of neat 

 stock ; and such marshes and meadows now in many cases 

 deemed worthless were for many years held, or sold at prices 

 which by the present generation would be thought almost fabu- 

 lous. Salt and fresh hay are as nutritious now as forty years 

 ago, but, fortunately for our dumb animals, such hay is seldom 

 relied upon for their subsistence to any considerable extent. 

 There are farmers — and very good farmers, too — who continue 

 to make their annual midnight pilgrimage " down to the salt 

 meadows," always deeming an apology necessary for so doing, 

 and always finding one in the belief that their cattle " eat bet- 

 ter " for being sometimes fed on salt or fresh hay, a belief which 

 is undoubtedly well founded, as nothing is so well calculated to 

 sharpen the appetite of man or beast as an occasional meal of 

 innutritions food. Against this hygienic view of the subject, 



