106 TALKS ON MANURES. 



3,000 Ibs. of nitrogen, and an equal amount of phosphoric 

 acid, per acre, in the first six inches of the surface soil. This 

 is as much nitrogen as is contained in 100 tons of meadov;- 

 hay, and more phosphoric acid than is contained in 350 tons of 

 meadow-hay. These are the two ingredients on which the fertility 

 of our farms mainly depend. And yet there are soils containing 

 this quantity of plant-food that do not produce more than half 

 a ton of hay per acre. 



In some fields, or parts of fields, the land is wet and the plants 

 cannot take up the food, even while an abundance of it is within 

 reach. The remedy in this case is under-draining. On other 

 fields, the plant-food is locked up in insoluble combinations. In 

 this case we must plow up the soil, pulverize it, and expose it to the 

 oxygen of the atmosphere. We must treat the soil as my mother 

 used to tell me to treat my coffee, when I complained that it was 

 not sweet enough. " I put plenty of sugar in," she said, " and if 

 you will stir it up, the coffee will be sweeter." The sugar lay un- 

 dissolved at the bottom of the cup ; and so it is with many of our 

 soils. There is plenty of plant-food in them, but it needs stirring 

 up. They contain, it may be, 3,OCO Ibs. of nitrogen, and other 

 plant-food in still greater proportion, and we arc only getting a 

 crop that contains 18 Ibs. of nitrogen a year, and of this probably 

 the rain supplies 9 Ibs. Let us stir up the soil and see if 

 we cannot set 100 Ibs. of this 3,000 Ibs. of nitrogen free, and 

 get three tons of hay per acre instead of half a ton. There arc 

 men who own a large amount of valuable property in vacant city 

 lots, who do not get enough from them to pay their taxes. If they 

 would sell half of them, and put buildings on the other half, they 

 might soon have a handsome income. And so it is with many 

 farmers. They have the elements of 100 tons of hay lying dor- 

 ment in every acre of their land, while they are content to receive 

 half a ton a year. They have property enough, but it is unprocluc 

 tive, while they pay high taxes for the privilege of holding it, and 

 high wages for the pleasure of boarding two or three hired men. 



\Yc have, say, 3,000 Ibs. of nitrogen locked up in each acre 

 of our soil, and we get 8 or 10 Ibs. every year in rain and 

 dew, and yet, practically, ail that we want, ta make our farms 

 highly productive, is 100 Ibs. of nitrogen psr acre per annum. 

 And furthermore, it should be remembered, that to keep our farms 

 rich, after we have once got them rich, it is not necessary to de- 

 velope this amount of nitrogen from the soil every year. In the 

 case of clover-hay, the entire loss of nitrogen in the animal and in 

 the milk would not exceed 15 per cent, so that, when we feed out 



