WllAT HAS SCIENCE DONE FOR FARMERS? 
385 
facts necessary for the fanner and dairyman, in relation to earth, 
air and water, and the constituent elements of each. How that 
vefjetable growth will absorb or throw off the erases of the atmos- 
phere; that the growth of one must take the place of the decay of 
the other, to keep the atmosphere in the best condition for man and 
the animals. Chemistry tells us that about ninety-five per cent, of 
plant growth is from the atmosphere, and practical science tells us 
that the soil must be in the right condition to absorb these ele¬ 
ments from the atmosphere, and retain them for the use of plant 
roots. 
Actual facts and your own observation have shown that of two ad¬ 
joining fields, wdth the same soil, one kept in good tilth, with no 
more artificial fertilizers than the other, one will produce good 
crops with a profit to the owner, while the other is starving the 
owner and the soil both at the same time. 
Science teaches us that plants elaborate in their cells, from the 
crude inorganic matter which they take up, certain materials neces¬ 
sary to the formation of fat, muscle and tissue, which are all needed 
to build up the waste constantly going on in the animal. The 
chemist can tell us what is needed in the soil to produce all of these 
in the plant, but the chemist cannot always detect or tell the dif¬ 
ference between primitive or progressed matter. Thus the phos¬ 
phate rock of New Jersey shows precisely the same percentage of 
the phosphate of lime that bones do, while one is food for our 
plants and the other is not. 
There would seem to be a conflict here if we did not look a little 
further to understand the cause. Science also teaches us the pro¬ 
gression of the primates and that the lower orders of plant life, by 
their life and decay, will afford food for a higher form, and that in 
turn to a still higher, until we have in one kind of food for man or 
animals, many or all of the constituent elements of thousands gone 
before. We know these elements all to exist progressed or unpro¬ 
gressed in the earth, air or water ready at our command to do our 
bidding, and practic.d science tells us how to increase the power of 
each by the use of proper stimulants, and if our soil lacks silex in 
the proper form to be assimilated by the crop of wheat, or oats, we 
must apply it in the more progressed form of potash, or raise crops 
that will in time overcome this defect, in that particular locality. 
The value of manures of the different kinds is not so much the real 
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