230 THE SYSTEM OF FAKM-YAKD MANUKING. 



an inexhaustible supply of nutritive substances in any 

 given soil, even in one which can no longer produce 

 clover, turnips, or potatoes, and yet may be rendered 

 capable of producing these plants by manuring with 

 ashes or lime in the right places ? 



In the face of the daily experience which shows that 

 the corn-fields, if they are to remain fruitful, must be 

 manured after a short series of years, it is a crime against 

 human society, a sin against the public welfare, to dis- 

 seminate the doctrine that the fodder-plants, which fur- 

 nish manure to the corn-fields, will constantly find upon 

 the field the conditions of their own growth, that the 

 law of nature applies to one kind of plant only, and has 

 no bearing upon the other. The teaching of these men 

 has no other result than to keep agriculture in the low 

 position which it now occupies. In England it is a mere 

 mechanical handicraft, and in that country manure is 

 regarded as merely the oil which smoothes the wheels 

 and keeps the machine in motion. 



In Germany agriculture is a jaded horse, treated 

 with blows instead of fodder ; nowhere is its real beauty 

 and the intellectual aspect of its pursuit recognised. 

 Not merely for its utility, but on account of this very 

 intellectual nature of its pursuit, it stands above all 

 occupations ; and its practice procures, to the man who 

 understands the voice of nature, not only all the advan- 

 tages for which he strives, but also those pleasures which 

 science alone can afford. 



In human society, ignorance is undoubtedly the 

 fundamental, and therefore the very greatest evil. The 

 ignorant man, however rich he may be, is not protected 

 from poverty by his wealth ; while the poor man, who 

 has knowledge, becomes rich by its means. Uncon- 

 sciously to the ignorant farmer, all his industry, care, 

 and toil only hasten his ruin ; his crops gradually di- 

 minish, and at length his children and grandchildren, 

 no wiser than himself, are unable to maintain them- 

 selves upon the homestead where they were born; their 

 land passes into the hands of the man who has knowl- 

 edge; for by knowledge capital and power are acquired, 



