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ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE, 
? ART THIRD* 
CHAPTER I. 
Ameliorators . 
LESSON I. 
GENERAL VIEWS OF MANURES, AMELIORATORS, AND STIM« 
ULANTS. 
1. Most of the products of the earth serve as food for 
men and animals. Among the latter, some furnish us 
with the necessary power to work the earth; others give 
us milk, cheese, wool, meat, etc. But that animals may 
continue to furnish us with these, the necessaries of life, 
they should be well cared for, and supplied with an abun¬ 
dance of healthy and nourishing food. 
2. So is it with the earth. She never refuses us her 
gifts if she is well cared for, and her strength renewed, 
after furnishing food to exhausting crops. 
3. All cultivated vegetables do not exhaust the soil to 
the same degree. The farmer should study carefully the 
properties of plants in this respect; for it is the only way 
to establish a judicious and profitable system of rotation. 
Thus, after a crop of clover, the land requires no manure ; 
for it receives from this crop more than it gives; and it 
may grow another crop more or less exhausting, depend¬ 
ing upon its previous condition. 
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