144 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



MANUEES. 



ESSEX. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



The successful prosecution of agriculture lies in a knowledge 

 and supply of those iugredients to the soil which are found, 

 by oft-repeated experiments, to be most conducive to the full 

 development of cultivated plants. 



The discoveries of chemistry show that all plants are built 

 up of organic and inorganic materials. Their organic part 

 consists of about nine-tenths of their weight, or that part 

 which can be consumed by fire, and the inorganic that which 

 remains in the ash. 



Their organic elements are derived from the atmosphere ; 

 viz., carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Over these 

 man has no control, for when the present harvest is consumed, 

 or decays, these elements, without loss, return to the atmo- 

 sphere, and are laid up for future use. Hence it is seen, that 

 in the divine economy the same materials are worked over 

 and over again, in the annual harvests forever. 



But it is the inorganic elements of plants with which the 

 cultivator has to deal, and over which he has control ; for the 

 living plant draws from the dead earth those materials which 

 are indispensable to its healthy growth. 



If, therefore, certain plants require in their growth, potash, 

 soda, lime, sulphuric acid, or any other inorganic constituent, 

 and the farmer repeatedly raises the same crops upon the 

 same ground, without returning the inorganic matter which 

 he removes in each successive harvest, it is obvious that his 

 :rops must diminish from year to year, for it has been found 

 ;hat however small the inorganic matter which a plant re- 

 mires, if it cannot be found in the soil, the plant sickens 

 jmd dies. 



