SOIL CULTURE, CEREALS AND FRUITS. 13 



Q. You take wild oats and wild tares, and if you get them in I am not going to 

 say when you will get them out. 



A. I may say that all our results are not expected to be followed strictly by 

 any one. Every man must use his own judgment in all such matters, and if he 

 knows what results we have had, he will be able to adapt our experience to his 

 conditions. 



Q. Take the farms in our country that are leased. Every lease contains a very 

 strict clause providing that every bit of manure should be turned and fermented 

 before it is put on the land. We could never keep our farms right unless we did so. 



A. I know a good many practical farmers who are putting the manure on fresh, 

 and they found it to be to their advantage to do so as far as this is practicable. 



Q. I have no doubt that it is better for the soil and will produce larger crops, 

 but the thing is for us to get our farms clean and keep them clean. 



EXHAUSTION OF SOIL BY CROPS. 



By Mr. McGregor : 



Q. With regard to growing of corn, oats, wheat or barley, have you any way of 

 telling which is the hardest on the land. 



A. Corn takes more of the fertilizing constituents from the soil than either 

 wheat, barley or oats. In the case of corn you take off the land a very large crop. 

 Supposing you get twenty tons per acre, cut green for ensilage, if you analyse that 

 you will find that the sum total of the plant food contained in it is greater than that 

 found in an ordinary crop of grain. 



Q. Does not the corn take more from the elements for its nourishment? 



A. It takes a considerable portion from the air, but it also takes much from the 

 soil. There is an idea abroad that the corn is not an exhaustive crop and that H 

 draws its nourishment chiefly from the air with the aid of sunshine. But this is not 

 entirely correct. 



By Mr. Featherston : 



Q. It is all moonshine. 

 A. Yes, largely so. 



By Mr. Cargill : 



Q. How does the corn crop compare with the turnip in exhausting the soil ? 



A. I cannot give you from memory the exact proportion of the elements of 

 fertility taken from the land by these two crops, but I shall be glad to give you these 

 particulars another time. 



By Mr. Featherston : 



Q. Do you not think the potato one of the least exhaustive of crops. 

 A. I think it is. If you will permit me to defer answering these questions until 

 to-morrow I will give you the exaot figures. 



IMPORTANCE OP ADOPTING BEST METHODS OP SAVING AND USING MANURE. 



I was going on to say that it is estimated that the manure in solids and 

 liquids produced by farm animals in Canada is about 100,000,000 tons per annum, 

 and each ton of this valuable fertilizer if properly saved may bo safely placed at $1, 

 which gives us a total value of 100 million dollars. If all this manure was carefully 

 handled, preserving the liquids with the solids in tight troughs behind the animals, 

 using sufficient straw as an absorbant and distributed over the land in a fresh con- 

 dition, the saving effected would be very large as the value of this manure in bringing 



