66 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



who are blessed with the ability to handle capital or labor to 

 advantage. I want to talk to the young man of small means, 

 who fears that he cannot compete with gardeners whose 

 operations run up into the thousands. And here let me say 

 that we do not envy you men who count your glass by the 

 acre, your onions by the million and your cabbage heads by 

 the regiment. On the whole, we feel sorry for you, that 

 you do not have the fun of substituting brains for horse 

 manure in building up your soil. 



First let me say that I am an old Massachusetts boy. I 

 was born in Plymouth, and I have carried with me all over 

 the country a great respect for the hard and sterile soil that 

 raised a solid crop of men. In my ball-playing days I could 

 stand in my father's old garden and hit the Pilgrim Monu- 

 ment with two throws of a stone. My belief is that the old 

 garden has produced over two hundred crops of corn, pota- 

 toes and beans. The greater part of these crops has been 

 produced, I think, not from the manure that has been applied, 

 but from the soil itself. This must be true at least of the 

 potash, for manure and fish have added but little of that sub- 

 stance. That garden has been dug and raked and dug again 

 at least one thousand times, with implements varying from 

 the Indian's clam shell to perhaps the modern fulcrum spading 

 fork. The constant stirring and working of that soil has 

 made it give up its plant food. In my opinion, that is what 

 nature ground the rocks into soil for, — so that it might give 

 itself away to the plant. It seems to me a mistake to say, 

 as we do, that we mxx&i feed the soil. That is a good way to 

 make the soil lazy. I would say, make the soil give away 

 the plant food it is holding like a miser. I have observed 

 that many good garden lands have been cast aside as worth- 

 less, under the mistaken idea that they are exhausted. That 

 is not true. Poor culture has simply made them tired. 

 Many of such lands are still strong, but they have been so 

 handled that their plant food is locked up. My belief is that 

 the place for the man with small capital but large sense is on 

 such lands, where the mistakes of others have obscured their 

 values. 



But why cannot the man of moderate means compete side 

 by side with the gardener of large capital and experience? I 



