2 Soiling. 



Any fool can rob the soil of its fertility, but it takes 

 a wise man, a professional agriculturist, to win it 

 back to productiveness. If we do not succeed in 

 doing this, we shall leave to our children a legacy 

 which "they will spurn, instead of one they could 

 receive with rejoicing, and that one must be capable 

 of supplying their increasing numbers and their in- 

 creasing wants. 



Farming on an Exhausted Soil.* 



I regret to say that the history of agriculture . in 

 America is any but one to which we may point with 

 pride. What, may I ask, has become of the many 

 farmers throughout the New England States who 

 once lived comfortably, if not luxuriously? Why 

 are their farms deserted, their houses unoccupied? 

 We have not far to look for the answer — the fertility 

 of the soil has been exhausted, sold in the markets 

 of New York and Boston by the pound, by the bushel, 

 and by the ton. Their owners, failing to find their 

 toil longer remunerative, have gone West, many of 

 them, where I presume they have gone on systemat- 

 ically robbing the soil, leaving to their descendants 

 a heritage of unremitting toil. Still more lament- 

 able is the condition of thousands of farms in Vir- 

 ginia and other parts of the sunny South. Here, 

 but a few years ago, lived a people who boasted of 

 their wealth, their refinement, their culture, and 

 their chivalry. Why are their once beautiful fields 



* Extract from an address delivered by the author at Albany, 

 N. Y., before the County Agricultural Society in 1890. 



