438 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



our farming arrangements were conducted in the manner which 

 the quality of manure produced on the farm itself prescribed? 

 we are now free to cultivate, as may seem most profitable, ev- 

 ery plant which is suited to the soil. Yea, still more : we can 

 produce, as it were, with a single effort, fine harvests from 

 worn-out fields ; we can, in such a case, secure, in twb or three 

 years, the same results for which formerly ten or twelve years 

 were required." 



Every farmer should, in addition to the animal excretions 

 which he possesses, be in the way of employing such artificial 

 manure as he can most readily and cheaply furnish himself 

 with. The following, by way of suggestion, is copied from an 

 English farm journal : Guano, urate from the London poudrette 

 manufactory, bone-dust, super-phosphate of lime, humus, rape- 

 cake, woollen rags, sulphate and muriate of ammonia, saltpetre, 

 Boast's mineral manure, alkaline manure, soda, soap-boilers' 

 ashes, gypsum, chloride of lime, &c. Here the intelligent tiller 

 of the soil has a fruitful theme for reflection and experiment — 

 to wit, to learn the effect of these several manures upon his 

 soils, and how to supply them in producing his various crops, 

 so as to learn which of all these varieties, with others not 

 named here, he shall, in the light of economy, procure. 



The great end to be reached by the use of manures is, such 

 a stimulation of the soil under cultivation as to obtain from 

 any given area the greatest possible amount of produce adapt- 

 ed to the feeding of man and beast, both being alike dependent 

 for nutrition on the vegetable kingdom. The art of feeding 

 animals, like that of plants, is but poorly understood, even by 

 the best agriculturists, at the present day. "Knowledge de- 

 rived from experience " has been kept in the background by 

 prejudice and superstition — guides of a stumbling and perverse 

 people. There seems to be very little more known to-day on 

 these subjects, notwithstanding the boast of progress in these 

 latter times, than was known to Abraham, Job, and Jacob. Yet 

 it would seem that many of these great problems, that lie at 

 the very foundation of agricultural economy, might be solved 

 in one generation, and even in less time, by experiment — -just 

 such as the most common farmer can make. The speculations 

 of the man of science in the laboratory can never do it, else a- 



