MR. fay's address. 13 



cannot go very wrong in practice. For example, few if any will 

 deny the superiority of barn-yard manure over all others as a means 

 of fertilization; and the reason seems to be obvious enough, since it 

 returns to the soil more nearly than any other all the principles 

 withdrawn from it, in the best condition to ensure reproduction. 

 But where the soil has become impoverished from neglecting this 

 obvious truth, something more may be needed to restore it to a 

 remunerative degree of fertility beyond what our barn-yard can 

 supply, in which event we must resort to foreign and artificial 

 manures. 



In a case of this nature, there is a very safe rule of practice 

 which may always be followed. In the first place, we must ascer- 

 tain from the best received authorities, unless our own experience 

 has taught us, the relative value of the special fertilizer which we 

 propose to make use of, compared with barn-yard manure, and the 

 number of tons of the latter which should be applied to the acre. 

 Having ascertained the extent of our deficiency, if we compost with 

 what we have, so much of the special fertilizer as will make it equal 

 to a full supply of barn-yard manure, and apply them together, we 

 shall derive the full benefit of both. There is something quite 

 consonant to reason in the composting together all the fertilizing 

 ingredients at our command. We know that plants require many 

 kinds of food for their perfect growth and development, some un- 

 doubtedly taking more of one than another. If, however, in the 

 cultivation of one kind, some of the fertilizers thus composted are 

 not wanted, it does not follow that they are lost ; they remain 

 incorporated with the soil, ready at a future period to yield their 

 food each to its appropriate plant. If we cultivate therefore in a 

 proper rotation, then all that we deposit in the soil under the general 

 term manure, will be ultimately developed and restored to us* in 

 succeeding crops. 



The unexampled drought of this season will not have been without 

 its advantage, if we act upon the lesson it has taught every obser- 

 vant farmer upon this point. Those crops, the maturity of which 



*For some most valuable and concise remarks on this subject, modestly entitled 

 " Items about soils and manures," I beg to refer the reader to the appendix. The 

 article is taken from the Daily Evening Traveller of September 11. I should 

 desire to put no better directions in the hands of the farmer for making the most of 

 Ms fertilizers, and it prescribes nothing that any one cannot easily accomplish. 



