No. 144.] 541 



There are, Mr. Cliairman, many sources for the restoration of 

 mineral matter from the sea. Among those are the importation 

 of guano, the use offish as food, the application of shells to the 

 soil, the manufacture of fish-oils and sea-salt; evaporation, the 

 wafting of spray to land, &c. But these are by no means sufii- 

 cient for the return of all that is lost by the improvident treat- 

 ment of manures and crops. The gentleman again says, that 

 "land must manure itself," he believing that it is unprofitable to 

 cultivate such fields as do not regain their lost ingredients, (sup- 

 posing that to be lost temporarily, which has entered the struc- 

 ture of a plant.) We all know, Mr. Chairman, how few acres 

 there are which are subject to such restitution. Indeed^ I may 

 say that but few soils not subject to irrigation, ever have their 

 constituents returned by natural means. Of course, in nature, 

 where every tree decays on the spot which gave it birth, its parts 

 return to their starting place. But, sir, let the hand of art place 

 that tree in the form of timbers in the hull of a ship, and let 

 them be cast on a foreign shore, and who, sir, will believe that 

 its inorganic atoms find their way, by any natural process, back 

 to the soil from which they were derived. Now, sir, this is but 

 an illustration of what occurs in ordinary farming. If we raise 

 cLiver or buckwheat for a green crop, and plow it under, we, of 

 course, return to the soil all that the crop takes from it, in addi- 

 tion to the organic matter taken from the atmosphere; whereas, if 

 W' e remove the crop, w^e remove with it a part of the organic soil, 

 and although the decay of roots may have increased its organic mat- 

 ter, it will have lost some of its mineral constituents, and the 

 only way by which this can be replaced, is by the artificial appli- 

 cation of manures. No land not irrigated, or otherwise supplied 

 by nature with its lost parts can be profitably cultivated. There 

 is not a field in the w^orld which, from i!s own resources, can sus- 

 tain the removal of crops without loss of parts, and these parts 

 must be returned, or it will each year become less able to supply 

 the requirements of crops. Certainly, sir, this is a plain question 

 of addition and subtraction, and no man of common sense can 

 fail to see its bearing. One more point, sir, and I have done. 

 Dr. Waterbury advises us to leave our present farms and remove 



