\ 



too ANIMALS ANL THEIR PRODUCTS. 



crops for a long time, and put nothing back, would 

 find that he had sold his farm also — sold it piece- 

 meal. 



PREVENTION. 



181. To prevent so sad a result, two modes are re- 

 sorted to. One is to procure foreign fertilizers enough 

 to make a full substitute for what is carried off from 

 the farm. It may be wise to adopt this course near 

 large cities, where produce is always high, and where 

 various fertilizers can be bought cheaply and conveyed 

 to the farm with a small expense — brought home, 

 perhaps, by the same team which draws the produce 

 to market. But with the great mass of farmers, the 

 other mode commends itself as the only one applicable 

 in their case. It is, to expend their produce r}%ainly on 

 the farm^ to preserve every particle of manure^ and to 

 compost it with peat^ roadr scrapings^ <f c, so as greatly 

 to increase the quantity, and to keep the quality up hy 

 adding plaster^ salt, lime and ashes. 



182. In this way, a farm can be made increasingly 

 fertile ; and if the best animals be selected, and the 

 best modes of feeding be adopted, the annual income 

 of the farm caSi be made nearly as great as by selling 

 the hay, grain and roots. If, on the other hand, the 

 animals are of inferior qualities, and the modes of 

 feeding are wasteful and ill suited to the nature of the 

 animal, not more than half of the estimated value of 

 crops are returned in the growth, products and labor 

 of the animals that consume them. These considera- 



