MR, perry's address. 21 



tion in amount and quality. This principle is in a degree under- 

 stood, and the practice of farmers in many things is in accordance 

 with it ; but it is by no means sufficiently understood or regarded. 

 From a want of this knowledge or disregard to the principle, 

 fields are often laid down with a kind of grass, or planted with 

 grain, or devoted to vegetables, ill-adapted to the soil, and ma- 

 nures used quite unsuited to the object for which they are em- 

 ployed ; animal and vegetable additions made where these are 

 already too abundant ; mineral preparations spread on where the 

 earth is already rendered comparatively sterile by their supera- 

 bundance. From causes wdiich I should not have time to ex- 

 plain, such applications may have a temporary good effect, though 

 in the end they must prove hurtful. Many manures operate on 

 the earth as strong drink upon the human system, commence 

 with excitement and end with exhaustion. Others encourage 

 the growth of plants, but not in the parts tnost desired ; they 

 perhaps increase the top when the roots are looked for, or they 

 nourish the stalks without filling the grain. 



I am well aware that the wise and merciful Creator, in conde- 

 scension to the necessities of our race and the numerous animal 

 creation, has so generally difliused the elements of vegetation, 

 that allowing for the, efiect of climate and other obvious causes, 

 there are but small portions of the earth Avhich will not cause to 

 grow whatever is committed to it. But there is a vast difi:erence 

 between a thing's growing and arriving to its greatest perfection, 

 between an article's just paying for its culture and yielding a gene- 

 rous profit. It should be recollected that It is not the first fifteen 

 or twenty bushels of corn, for instance, w'hich constitutes the pro- 

 fit of cultivation, but the two or three bushels which remain after 

 all expenses are met. The man who raises twenty-four bushels 

 on the acre may actually make twice as much as he who gets 

 but twenty-two. What is needed Is such a knowledge as will 

 enable men to obtain these additional bushels, or teach the far- 

 mer where the land is not suitable for corn to be content to raise 

 such things as it will produce. In another county in this state, 

 Mr. N., a strong, resolute, working man, used to say, ' I know 

 that my farm is as good as my neighbor M's, and that 1 have as 



