60 CHEMICAL MANURES. 



I have 'chosen, and there are agriculturists whose industry is more 

 enlightened those, for example, who have added sugar-boilers or 

 distilleries to their farms, and to whom the importation of fertilizers 

 is not necessary. 



Even under these conditions the culture, reduced to its own re- 

 sources, cannot give manure enough to raise its returns to a point 

 which will make profit certain. 



M. Cavallier, whose farm has a sugar-boiler added to it, is only 

 able to produce 1000 tons of manure the year, which is hardly suffi- 

 cient for 125 acres, at the rate of 44,444 pounds of manure every two 

 years. 



Well, under these conditions M. Cavallier obtained but from 31,111 

 to 35,555 pounds of beets the acre, when, with the complete fertilizer, 

 he last year obtained 52,966 pounds. You will not be surprised if, 

 in the face of these results, M. Cavallier has decided to regulate the 

 economy of his crops on the permanent employment of chemical fer- 

 tilizers. 



The conclusion at which I wish to arrive is this : that in the great 

 generality of cases the most costly of all manures is the manure of 

 the farm. 



In the past this proposition has attained the dignity of an axiom : 

 that for successful culture we must have meadow, cattle and manure. 

 Now, I affirm that this proposition is at once an economical and agri- 

 cultural heresy. 



The agriculturist who only uses manure wastes his land. For from 

 whence comes the manure? From its depths. The manure does 

 not, then, in reality, repair the losses in phosphate of lime, potash, 

 lime and azotic matter that the land is submitted to by the exporta- 

 tion of a part of its harvests. When we export meat, the loss is less 

 than when we export grain, though there is always a loss. I repeat, 

 then, this axiom, which, until now, has been made the basis, and, as 

 it were, the palladium, of agricultural art, is in reality but an expe- 

 dient. It has no right to be so but in the exceptional case where the 

 meadow is watered by a stream of limestone water, which gives the 

 soil the equivalent of what it loses in agents of fertility ; but I repeat, 

 this case is so rare it cannot be made a law. 



I have said that a culture founded solely on the use of manure is 

 also an economy without judgment. 



Suppose the case of mediocre land, yielding from 11 to 14 bushels 

 of wheat the acre ; calculate how much time it would take you to 

 bring it with manure to produce 39 to. 43 bushels : you would recoil 

 before the sacrifices this would draw you into. 



With the chemical fertilizers the change is immediate, the progres- 

 sion sudden, and the benefit immediate also. Now, if you remark 

 that besides the profit, the resources in straw are increased from the 

 'first year, is it not evident that, instead of first having meat to, have 

 grain, there is a manifest advantage in reversing the preconceived 

 order and commencing by having grain to gain a profit first, then 

 straw, and lastly manure ? I repeat, then, that we only cease to 

 waste our land when we really import manures, and the solution im- 



