38 TALKS OX MANURES. 



perience, took these remarks kindly. " Well," said he to me, " I 

 must say that your farm has certainly improved, but you did things 

 so differently from what we expected, that we could not see what 

 you were driving at." 



" I can tell you what I have been aiming at all along. 1st. To 

 drain the wet portions of the arable land. 2d. To kill weeds, and 

 make the soil mellow and clean. 3d. To make more manure." 



"You have also bought some bone-dust, superphosphate, and 

 other artificial manures." 



"True; and if I had had more money I would have bought 

 more manure. It would have paid well. I could have made my 

 land as rich as it is now in half the time." 



I had to depend principally on the natural resources of the land. 

 I got out of the soil all I could, and kept as much of it as possible 

 on the farm. One of the mistakes I made was, in breaking up too 

 much land, and putting in too much wheat, barley, oats, peas, and 

 corn. It would have been better for my pocket, though possibly 

 not so good for the farm, if I had left more of the land in grass, 

 and also, if I had summer-fallowed more, and sown less barley and 

 oats, and planted less corn. 



" I do not see how plowing up the grass land," said the Deacon, 

 "could possibly be any better for the farm. You agricultural 

 writers are always telling us that we plow too much land, and do 

 not raise grass and clover enough." 



" What I meant by saying that it would have been better for my 

 pocket, though possibly not so good for the farm, if I had not 

 plowed so much land, may need explanation. The land had been 

 only half cultivated, and was very foul. The grass and clover 

 fields did not give more than half a crop of hay, and the hay was 

 poor in quality, and much of it half thistles, and other weeds. I 

 plowed this land, planted it to corn, and cultivated it thoroughly. 

 But the labor of keeping the corn clean was costly, and absorbed a 

 very large slice of the profits. But the corn yielded a far larger 

 produce per acre than I should have got had the land lain in 

 And as all this produce was consumed on the farm, we made more 

 manure than if we had plowed less land." 



I have great faith in the benefits of thorough tillage or, in other 

 words, of breaking up, pulverizing, and exposing the soil to the 

 decomposing action of the atmosphere. I look upon a good, strong 

 soil as a kind of storehouse of plant-food. But it is not an easy 

 matter to render this plant-food soluble. If it were any less solu- 

 ble than it is, it would have all leached out of the land centuries 

 ago. Turning over, and fining a manure-heap, if other conditions 



