242 7'nAxsACTioys of the American Institute. 



the suinc way, and if you wait for the last to liatch the first will have 

 destroyed many leaves. It is best to make thorough work. Kill 

 those that hatch after the first sprinkling by going over the bnshes 

 another day. AVlien this is done it will last for years, unless careless 

 neighbors preserve seed for another year. 



The Waste of Fertility. 



C. S. Osgood, Wright City, Warren county, Mo. — Fertilization 

 of the soil in most parts of the country is the great one thing needful 

 in farming. Ordinary lands produce fair crops when the weather 

 and season is favorable, but highly fertilized lands nearly always pro- 

 duce well. When we took the land from nature it was nearly all 

 rich enough to produce heavy crops ; and it is entirely discreditable 

 to us that instead of improving, it should greatly deteriorate under 

 our management. With almost any soil level enough not to wash 

 badly (and no other ought to be much cultivated), I hold it to be 

 entirely unnecessary and poor economy to have less crops than can 

 barely stand up and ripen well on the ground. And to accom- 

 plish so desirable a consummation nothing more in the world is 

 wanting than g-ood ordinarv cultivation and a return to the soil, with- 

 out material waste, of the crops that are taken from it after being- 

 consumed by animals, either brute or human. It is a theoretical and 

 practical fact, that such a course of treatment, faithfully applied for 

 ten years or less, will enrich most soils ahove the point of good pro- 

 duction. The one gi^eai, glaring, defect of our farming is, that of 

 all the elements of fertility drawn from the soil by crops, not one- 

 fourth is again returned to it, but the great majority, by various 

 channels, finds its way to the greedy, all-absorbing sea, i)erhaps to be 

 of use in some future geological era, but lost to us entirely. Nature 

 seems bent upon the job of denuding the land of its fine and fertili- 

 zing matter, and the great majority of mankind are stupid enough to 

 help hei- to despoil them, or at least to ofifer no resistance. If the 

 sea were ii>t deeper than the soil, it would long before now have 

 become one vast reeking cesspool. Beside the enormous amount of 

 food and other products of the soil consumed in cities and towns, of 

 which all but a slight fraction finds its way to the sea, I estimate that 

 quite one-half of what is consumed on the farms themselves goes 

 the same way, and in all this western country a very much 

 greater proportion. I have this spring paid my full share of 

 tribute to the Gulf of Mexico, expressed via the Mississippi 



