ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 125 



acre, the farmer gets six dollars, which certainly does not 

 cover the worth of his time and the interest on his land. 



Is it possible, then, at an expense within the means of 

 ordinary fanners, to bring a double or treble crop of wheat ? 

 It' nature has set limits to the produce of this grain to the 

 acre, and if our fanners have come up to that limit, there is 

 no use in their trying to do any better. But if their crop is 

 four fold behind what it ought to be, they will feel courage 

 to reach out for a better mode of cultivation. Vegetables 

 collect food from the atmosphere, and from the soil ; and 

 different plants select different articles of food from the 

 soil, just as different birds, beasts, insects, etc., require 

 different food. One class of plants draws potash largely 

 from the soil, as turnips, potatoes, the stalk of corn, etc. 

 Another class requires lime, in great measure, as tobacco, 

 pea straw, etc. Liebig partially classifies plants according 

 to the principal food which they require ; as silica plants, 

 lime plants, potash plants, etc. 



Every plant being composed of certain chemical elements, 

 requires for its perfection a soil containing those elements. 

 Thus chemistry has shown, by exact analysis, that good 

 meadow hay contains the following elements : Silica (sand), 

 lime (as a phosphate, a sulphate, and a carbonate, i. e. lime 

 combined with phosphoric, sulphuric, and carbonic acids), 

 potash (as a chloride, and a sulphate), magnesia, iron, and 

 soda. Whatever soil is rich in these will be productive of 

 grass. 



The grain of wheat (in distinction from the straw) con- 

 tains, and of course requires from the soil, sulphates of "pot- 

 ash, soda, lime, magnesia, iron, etc. 



Any vegetable, in its proper latitude, will flourish in a 

 soil which will yield it an abundance of food; and decline 

 in a soil which is barren of the proper nutritive ingredients. 



A practical, scientific knowledge of these fundamental 

 facts, will give an intelligent farmer, in grain-growing lati- 

 tudes, almost unlimited power over his crops. A good 



