V 



494 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



art, the emperor himself holds the annual plough, — whence come 

 the floral splendors of Azalea and Camillia, Aster and Peony, and 

 choicest roses, — employ as their only manures the excrements, 

 solid and liquid, that have been allowed among us of the Occi- 

 dent for centuries to escape and taint the household air from 

 long, fetid, and pestilent vaults, and that we have in past ages 

 discarded as useless. And, had I the direction of the agricul- 

 tural societies in our land, I would offer the first, and by far 

 the largest, premium for the best mode of saving, preparing, 

 and applying this manure, and the second for the economy and 

 preparation of each and every kind of nutritious compost. 

 Then fill up your barn cellars, and vaults, and sink drains with 

 clay, peat, mud, &c, that shall absorb every particle of the 

 liquid and gaseous elements, and thus fulfil the Scripture pre- 

 cept — " that nothing be lost; " and remember to keep always a 

 barrel to dissolve your bones and shells in moistened ashes. 



Next comes the proper application of manure ; and here 

 what the envious hour forbids me to speak, that I shall ask 

 you, brother farmers, to read in print at your homes. And 

 with the application of manure rises the consideration of the 

 analysis of soils, the doctrine of specifics; and so on. And 

 here I catch a faint muttering in the corner from my gruff 

 old friend, to whom book learning and book farming were 

 so distasteful, in which, however, I am able to distinguish the 

 phrase, " new-fangled humbugs." Allow me, however, to say, 

 my friend, there is no humbug about it. How are you to know, 

 I pray you, what elements your soil needs unless you have as- 

 certained by analysis what it already contains? I grant you 

 there may be careless examinations by unscientific men; but 

 would you forever be carrying coals to Newcastle, the mother 

 of coals, or ship lime to Thomaston ? What would you think 

 of a farmer who was carting ashes on to a tract of new land 

 just burned over, spreading gypsum on a calcareous soil, or 

 teaming ditch mud on to a peat meadow? It may be that a 

 certain piece of land only requires one single additional ele- 

 ment, — lime or potash, carbon or ammonia, perhaps, — and has 

 a surplus of the other elements necessary to vegetable growth. 

 What use, then, of wasting your time, labor, and manure in 

 adding to that .surplus, when a little plaster, a little super-phos- 



