108 Renews. — Colmmis Address. 



" But it is sufficient to have referred to these, to show that our husbandry 

 in general, in respect to its productiveness, is far inferior to what it may 

 be." In many cases our soil is not inferior to any which the sun shines 

 upon. There is in our climate no hindrance to the highest measure of 

 production. The large crops to which I refer, arc tlie result of skilful 

 and superior cultivation. They do not come by chance. They show 

 ■what skill and labor can effect. It will be said that they involve an ex- 

 pensive cultivation, but in every case within my knowledge, tliey have 

 rendered an ample return for all the labor and expense incurred. An ob- 

 serving farmer will perceive tliat in most cases a few extra bushels in tlie 

 yield, constitute all the profit of a crop. Thirty bushels to the acre may 

 barely pay the expenses of cultivation ; but fifty bushels witliout any in- 

 crease of land, or labor in planting, cultivating or harvesting, may leave 

 a clear profit of twenty bushels per acre. It will be said that such culti- 

 vation exhausts the soil. It does not exhaust the soil any more tlian poor 

 cultivation exiiausts the soil ; and it is followed with this remarkable dif- 

 ference, that it affords the means of enriching the soil, and restoring its 

 exhausted energies, which poor cultivation does not. Who ever heard 

 that a farm became exhausted by good cultivation ? Whose farms are in 

 tlie best condition ; the farms of those who grow the poorest, or those 

 who raise the largest crops ? Fanns may be exhausted by growing 

 the same crop too often in immediate succession on the same land ; by 

 carrying off tlie products from, instead of consuming them on the farm, 

 and thus returning nothing to replenish the soil in the form of manure ; 

 but under a wise and skilful and liberal husbandry, it would be difficult 

 to find a country exhausted of its fertility by production. Look at our 

 immense forests, and calculate what an enormous amount of vegetable 

 matter is contained in the timber upon an acre of ground. But is the 

 soil impoverished or enriched by it ? Is not the vegetable pabulum, the 

 food of i)lants, constantly increased by the growth of this heavy timber ? 

 Would land become more rich by leaving it uncovered and without 

 plants ? Does a naked fallow enrich the soil ? A fallow may benefit the 

 farmer by the destruction of noxious weeds. The land is benefited by 

 being stirred, and exposed to the influence of the air, and dew, and frost, 

 and rain. But would a fallow, kept constantly clean, and extended even 

 through a series of years, do any thing to increase the fertility of the 

 soil r Undoubtedly a large proportion of the carbon of which plants are 

 composed, of the food of plants, is derived from the atmosphere, of that 

 which is above the ground and that which is within the ground ; but as 

 undoubtedly this is received only through the organization of the plant, 

 through its leaves and stem. The living plant itself decomposes the at- 

 mosphere, and appropriates to its own growth and nourishment that wliich 

 it requires. So, likewise, it decomposes the vegetable matter already ex- 

 isting in the soil in a state of decay, and recovers the food, %vhich, in the 

 dissolution of a previous vegetable growth, has there been stored up for 

 it, and is held ready for its use. With the exception of the salts or the 

 mineral substances which are foimd in plants, and which in any case con- 

 stitute comparatively a very small proportion of their substance, they de- 

 rive all their food and nourishment from the air, either directly or indi- 

 rectly ; directly through the leaves and stem by a process of absorption 

 well understood, in which the elements of the air are decomposed and its 

 carbon appropriated ; and indirectly through the decayed vegetable mat- 



