142 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



modification. Thus agriculture remains an art as well as a 

 science. The law of agricultural labor, as contrasted with 

 manufactures and mechanical labor, differs ; this class of labor 

 should be concentrated, rather than scattered ; gathered into a 

 few acres, rather than spread over many. Don't till more 

 land than your capital and labor will enable you to produce, 

 under favorable circumstances, a maximum crop. As the 

 farmer increases the ground under cultivation beyond a fixed 

 standard for the best of cultivation, every step is attended 

 with reduced profit. Many till four hundred acres with labor 

 and means not more than sufficient for one hundred ; and 

 one hundred acres with means suited to twenty-five. Hence, 

 if we are told that an income of one thousand dollars was 

 obtained from one acre of land, we should feel quite sure 

 that a large part was profit, perhaps sixty or eighty per cent. 

 If told that a similar revenue was obtained from ten acres, 

 we should be certain that the profits had fallen to twenty-five 

 per cent. ; and if we were again informed that such an income 

 was realized from one hundred acres, that the labor must 

 absorb nearly the whole, and the profits sink to four or five 

 per cent. The quantity of land to be tilled must ever be 

 limited by the amount of labor and capital, to realize the 

 greatest return from highest manuring and most thorough 

 tillage, regardless of expense. Why cultivate four acres to 

 obtain the same amount of vegetables that can be produced 

 from one? 



It has been found from experience that the tissues of plants 

 absorb, and take into their growth, the finest and most dissol- 

 uble portions of manure ; hence the finest and most dissoluble 

 are the best fertilizers. Finely pulverized, and those in a 

 liquid form, contain a much larger percentage of nutriment, 

 and it would compensate the farmer for the labor and expense 

 of reducing all his manures to that condition. 



The earth is like a pair of lungs, requiring to be kept open, 

 so that the air may circulate freely through them, which is 

 most essential to a healthy condition of the body which they 

 support. Like the surface of the body, it has pores through 

 which air, light, and heat enter, to warm and nourish the 

 plant rootlets below. In order to have a good, open, well- 

 pulverized, friable, and nutritious soil, which is especially 



