368 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
through which the Creator intended either should receive its daily 
supply of food. Prof. Peter Collier, Secretary of the Vermont State 
Board of Agriculture, in a paper read before that society, says: 
“ Numerous experiments have been made with soils artificially 
prepared, in which there existed no food available to the plant, 
other than it might derive from pure water and the atmosphere, 
and in every case, it has been found that so soon as the growing 
plant had exhausted the scanty supply of nutriment stored up in 
the seed, it has withered and died. Similar experiments have 
been tried where the plant has been supplied with silch food as 
analysis has shown them to need, and such plants have grown and 
perfected their seed.” 
Nature has wisely provided nourishment in the seed of all 
plants, so that when germination commences, it shall be supplied 
with food until the roots penetrate the soil and obtain proper 
aliment there. Hence, if one flatters himself with the erroneous 
idea that the atmosphere furnishes food direct to the plant in any 
perceptible quantity, let him disabuse his mind of that notion at 
once, and use every available and profitable means to place his 
food for plants in the soil within reach of the natural mouths— 
roots—of plants, where nature evidently intended it should be 
placed, and where, if properly assimilated and made available for 
food, it will be sought out by the finest rootlets, and appropriated 
to the use of the plant. I would as soon think of binding food 
upon the back of an animal, and expect it to be absorbed so as to 
restore his exhausted vital forces, or apply food to the surface of 
my own body, expecting to be invigorated and strengthened 
thereby, as to expect plant food in the atmosphere to be appro¬ 
priated directly to the plant in such quantities as to produce per¬ 
ceptible beneficial results. Valuable gases are constantly escap¬ 
ing into the atmosphere which ought to be saved by proper ab¬ 
sorbents, but they are no doubt all returned to the earth by the 
aid of rain, snow, and other natural agencies, and there furnish 
food for the growing crops. It is, however, possible, and even 
very probable, that these enriching properties never reach the soil 
of the farm from which they escaped. 
Mr. President, I doubt not you have observed, as I have, when 
cultivating the soil where the roots of the cereals and other plants 
