252 AGKICULTUEAL EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



Viewing our own present condition, we notice that well- 

 paying grass land, good natural meadow, with rich and 

 extensive pastures, are rather an exception than the rule. 

 The benefits derived from indifierently yielding natural 

 pastures are more apparent than real ; the low cost of the 

 production of the fodder is frequently, in a large degree, set 

 off by a mere chance distribution of the manure produced. 

 A continued cultivation of one and the same crop upon the 

 same land, without a liberal, rational system of manuring, 

 has caused in many instances a one-sided exhaustion of the 

 land under cultivation. This circumstance has frequently 

 been brought about in a marked degree by a close rotation 

 of mixed grasses (meadow growth) and of our next main 

 reliance for fodder, — the corn (maize). Both crops require 

 potash and phosphoric acid in similar proportion (four parts 

 potassium oxide to one part i)ho8phoric acid), and both 

 require an exceptional amount of the former. There is 

 good reason to assume that the low state of productiveness 

 of many of our farms, so often complained of, is largely due 

 to the fact that crops have been raised in succession for 

 years, which, like those mentioned, have consumed one or 

 the other essential article of plant food in an exceptionally 

 large proportion, and thereby have gradually unfitted the 

 soil for their remunerative production, while a liberal sup- 

 ply of other important articles of plant food is left inactive 

 behind. As the amount of available plant food contained in 

 the soil represents largely the working capital of the farmer, 

 it cannot be otherwise but that the practice of allowing a 

 part of it to lay idle must reduce the interest on the invest- 

 ment. 



Our personal observation upon the lands assigned for the 

 use of the station has furnished abundant illustration of the 

 above-described condition of farm lands. In one instance it 

 was noticed that a piece of old worn-out grass land, after 

 being turned under and properly prepared, as far as the 

 mechanical condition of the soil was concerned, produced, 

 without any previous application of manure, an exception- 

 ally large crop of horse beans and lupine, — two reputed 

 fodder crops. A similar observation was made during the 



