farm management has repeated itself in most countries. Tiie unsat- 

 isfactory results of that system of farming finds still an abundant 

 illustration in the present exhausted condition of a comparative large 

 area of farm lands in New England. 



Scientific investigations carried on during the past fifty years for 

 the particular benefit of agriculture, have not only been instrumental 

 in recognizing the principal causes of an almost universal periodical 

 decline of the original fertility of farm lands, but have also materially 

 assisted by field experiments and otherwise in introducing efficient 

 remedies to arrest the noted decline in the annual yield of our most 

 prominent farm crops. As a scanty supply of manurial matter, 

 due to a serious falling off of one of the principal fodder crops was 

 found to l)e one of the chief causes of less remunerative crops, 

 and thus indirectly has proved to be the main cause of an increase in 

 the cost of the products of the animal industry of the farm, milk and 

 meat, it is but natural that the remedies devised should include as 

 one of the foremost recommendations, a more liberal production of 

 nutritious fodder crops. The soundness of this advice is to-day 

 fully demonstrated in the most successful agricultural regions of the 

 world. An intensive system of cultivation has replaced in those local- 

 ities the extensive one of preceding periods ; although the area un- 

 der cultivation for the production of general farm crops has been 

 reduced, the total value of the products of the farm have increased 

 materially in consequence of a more liberal cultivation of reputed 

 fodder crops. The change has been gradual and the results are highly 

 satisfactory. 



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 

 indifferently 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 re- 

 quire potash and phosphoric acid, in similar proportion (4, potassium 

 oxide to 1, phosphoric acid), and both require an exceptional amount 



