76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



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capital employed, labor applied, seeds, utensils, improvements, 

 products, and final results, are as important in agricultural as 

 in mercantile transactions. 



Of all the wastes upon a farm, perhaps there is none more 

 apparent than that of manures ; none more deserving of 

 reprobation, because none other is so generally and directly 

 prejudicial to success in farming, and none other of any thing 

 like the same extent can be so easily prevented. The farmer, 

 somewhat in imitation of the old orator, speaking under differ- 

 ent circumstances, if asked what were the three essentials 

 necessary to success in farming, might reply: first, manure; 

 second, manure; third, manure. It is, indeed, the great 

 motive-power in all agricultural operations, especially in the 

 worn and naturally unfertile soils of New England ; good and 

 clean cultivation is very important, but without a soil containing 

 the elements of growth, it will avail nothing, and these can 

 only be created or kept up by the constant application of 

 manures. These constitute directly, or assist indirectly, the 

 supply of nearly all the nourishment of vegetable life, while it 

 is these, which, produced chiefly from the decay of animal and 

 vegetable matter, combine most powerfully to give new life and 

 vigor to every form of vegetable existence that springs from the 

 bosom of the earth, by the operations of nature, or artificial 

 application. The acorn from which sprang " the oak, the 

 brave old oak," may be traced back in its germination to the 

 fertilizing properties, and the warmth caused by the fermenta- 

 tion and decay of the leaves and the grass among which it 

 chanced to fall. Nourished and strengthened by this natural 

 manure, it has grown and stretched its great arms abroad, till 

 it is styled the monarch of the forest, and now by the annual 

 decadence of its leaves, adds its annual deposition of fertilizing 

 material to the soil beneath, which in part is again absorbed by- 

 its own roots. The golden-eared corn owes its beauty and its 

 vitality to the manure prudently placed beneath the hill. The 

 smallest seeds of all the grasses, and of every herb for the use 

 of man, stretch out their tiny rootlets for the food scattered by 

 nature, or spread by the hand of man. Since, then, manures 

 are of such all-controlling consequence in agriculture, how 

 carefully should we study into their nature and composition ; 

 how faithfully should wo labor to increase by every means the 



