158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and the supplies in the soil must be so abundant that the 

 tiny roots can find nourishment at every point." 



But it is not necessary to depend altogether upon the tes- 

 timony of scientific men to substantiate the statement made, 

 that the Connecticut Valley farms are increasing in fertility 

 as a result of the culture of tobaoco. 



My neighbor, with his farm of twenty-four acres, twenty 

 years since cut less than ten tons of hay annually ; but now, 

 with his eight or ten acres of tobacco out of the twenty-four, 

 cuts from forty to fifty tons yearly. 



This is not an imaginary case. The owner's name could be 

 given if necessary, but "his name is Legion." Neither is 

 the statement in any degree invalidated because of the fact 

 that the owner of this farm feeds to his animals twenty tons 

 of hay, or one thousand bushels of corn besides what he grows 

 himself. Nor is the statement in any degree shown to be 

 incorrect because of the fact that the farmers of the valley 

 are feeding extensively of corn grown in Illinois, of cotton- 

 seed meal brought from Tennessee or Mississippi, or because 

 of the importations and application yearly to the lands of the 

 hundreds, yes, thousands, of tons of commercial fertilizers in 

 every form and description, or because of the hundreds of 

 car-loads of the excrements of domestic animals, which are 

 annually brought into the valley and applied to the soil. 

 On what other farm crop of the valley is one-half the invest- 

 ment made for fertilizing elements ? Who is he who dares 

 to say that this large amount of plant nourishment is to any 

 considerable extent drawn from the soil by the following 

 tobacco crop? Do the succeeding crops of grain or grass 

 show an exhausted condition of the soil ? 



To show still further the beneficial effects arising from the 

 cultivation of this crop, I can point you to swamp lands that 

 have been cleared up and converted into the best of mow- 

 ing lands in consequence of the desire to cut more hay as 

 feed to farm stock, and to increase the manure pile. 



An aged physician who resides in one of our river towns, 

 says that "the cultivation of tobacco has been the means 

 of raising the health of the town in the sanitary scale of the 

 towns of the Commonwealth, from the tenth to the third, 

 resulting from the opening of the drains to get the muck for 

 compost." 



