78 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



tables thus far, to impress upon the minds of our farmers the 

 importance of saving, and of applying the food of their vege- 

 tables with the same care and economy that they do the 

 food of their animals. How scrupulously careful is the good 

 husbandman of the produce of his farm destined to nourish 

 and fatten his animals ; and yet how often careless of the 

 food which can alone nourish and mature his plants: while 

 his fields are gleaned, and his grain, hay, and roots carefully 

 housed, and economically dispensed to his animals, the food 

 of his vegetables is suffered to waste on every part of his 

 farm. Stercoraries we have none. The urine of the stock, 

 which constitutes a moiety of the manure of animals, is all 

 lost. The slovenly and wasteful practice of feeding at stacks 

 in the fields, where the sole of the grass is broken, the fodder 

 wasted, and the dung of little effect, is still pursued. And, 

 finally, the little manure which does accumulate in the yards, 

 is suffered to lie till it has lost full half of its fertilizing pro- 

 perties, or rotted the sills of the barn ; when it is injudiciously 

 applied, or the barn removed to get clear of the nuisance. 

 Again : none but a slothful farmer will permit the flocks of 

 his neighbors to rob his own of their food ; yet he often sees, 

 but with feeble efforts to prevent it, his plants smothered by 

 pestiferous weeds, and plundered of the food which is essen- 

 tial to their health and vigor. A weed consumes as much food 

 as a useful plant. This, to be sure, is the dark side of the 

 picture; yet the original may be found in every town, and 

 in almost every neighborhood. 



Is it surprising that under such management our arable 

 grounds should grow poor, and refuse to labor its accustom- 

 ed reward ? Can it be considered strange, that those who 

 thus neglect to feed their plants should feel the evil of light 

 purses, as well as of light crops? Constant draining or 

 evaporation, without returning any thing, would in time 

 exhaust the ocean of its waters. A constant cropping of the 

 soil, without returning any thing to it, will in like manner 

 exhaust it of its vegetable food, and gradually induce sterility. 

 Neither sand, clay, lime, or magnesia, which are the elements 

 of all soils, nor any combination of part or all of them, is 

 alone capable of producing healthy plants. It is the animal 

 and vegetable matter accumulated upon its bosom, or which 

 art deposits there, with the auxiliary aid of these materials 

 diffused in the atmosphere, that enables the earth to teem 

 with vegetable life, and yield its tribute to man and beast. 



I will now suggest a cheap and practicable mode of pro- 



