21 



corn where it was used, wore in the early part of the 

 season a most sorrowful and forlorn aspect ; the 

 warm suns of July, however, enlivened its spirits 

 and changed its complexion. Its present size would 

 rebuke me were I to assert that it has not found 

 somewhere a pretty good supply of nourishment. In 

 the field of a friend, who left his corn to feed upon 

 bones and meadow mud, or starve, its aspect a few 

 weeks since indicated that the food was either diffi- 

 cult of mastication or hard to digest. Its growth 

 was less vigorous and its appearance less healthy 

 than that of the surrounding corn upon different 

 diet. A rust, a bad rust, was upon all its leaves, 

 while the neighboring corn on all sides was bright 

 and healthy in its appearance. Probably you can 

 find more economical means of enriching your soils, 

 than that of procuring bones. 



Book farming. Do the words produce a sneer ? 

 Be that as it may ; the thing, or what is often stig- 

 matized as that thing, is not contemptible. For what 

 is it ? Not an attempt to comply with the advice and 

 copy the example of every one who furnishes an ar- 

 ticle for an agricultural journal ; not the adoption of 

 every method of husbandry that is recommended in 

 print ; not a departure from all the usages of our fa- 

 thers and neighbors ; not a preference of the theo- 

 ries contained in books to the results of experience. 

 No. I pity the stupidity of the man who thinks that 

 if we use books, we must close our eyes against the 

 light that is beaming upon us from other sources ; or 

 that we must become mere theorisers, and the vic- 

 tims of ruinous experiments. What! does a man 



