Exhibition Addresses. 151 



macliinery to many of its nicest operations. Not only are mowing 

 macliines and liorse-rakes, and horse-forks and rock-lifters and stump- 

 pnllers required, but macliines which will pulverize the soil, clean it 

 of roots and weeds, and perform expeditiously and tlioroughly^ what 

 is now done in a tedious, expensive and rude manner by such unsat- 

 isfactory implements as the plow and grubber. We need a better 

 implement for turning the sod than the plow — an implement more 

 easily handled and more eftective. We need a seed-sower which will 

 be more accurate and economical in the distribution of seed, and 

 which will cover the seed with firmness and equality, so that germi- 

 nation will be more uniform, and the eifects of heat and cold and 

 drought and water on the seed will be less extreme and imperious. 

 We need implements for weeding and thinning crops, especially 

 roots and many garden vegetables, without the use of slow and toil- 

 some and expensive hand labor. We want to substitute perpendicu- 

 lar for horizontal labor in our onion fields. And I have no doubt 

 that we shall ultimately be enabled to reduce materially the cost of 

 labor on our most expensive crops by the use of skill and machinery, 

 and to make easy and tolerable that which is now arduous and repul- 

 sive. Is it too much to expect that the progress of practical agricul- 

 ture will lead to this ere long? 



Pkepakation and Use of Manukes, 

 The expense attending the fertilization of the soil is a burdensome 

 obstacle in the way of profitable agriculture. It is not only the cost 

 of producing the manure which we are to consider — for that is often 

 covered by the profit, either in meat or milk or labor of the ani- 

 mal fed — but it is the amount of labor involved in placing the 

 manure in the soil. Artificial fertilizers are, to a certain extent, an 

 expedient for all this. But we have not yet found a substitute for 

 barnyard manure in the production of our largest and most valuable 

 crops. How to use this economically, then, is the important ques- 

 tion, Keduee the labor upon it to the lowest possible point — this is 

 the first requisite. Pass it from the barnyard or cellar to the crop it 

 is to nourish, in as small bulk as possible, thoroughly decomposed for 

 some crops, and leaving it to decompose in the soil for others. Avoid 

 large masses of compost materials. Muck is undoubtedly useful in 

 some soils, and in a certain amount, but never, as I believe, beyond 

 the limit of a mere absorbent, wlien mixed with barnyard manure. 

 Beyond that point it adds nothing but bulk, and weight, and 



