Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 127 
course plants would not do as well in such, a soil. But what we need 
is to furnish the conditions best suited to increase the amount of 
mineral matter. It is very much better to manure than not to, but 
the object of putting manure on the soil is not to furnish organic 
matter, but to furnish means for decomposing the mineral matter. 
Plants take in no organic matter, or next to noue, through the 
roots, and it is not necessary that they take up a particle of it. 
If you furnish the proper elements, in sufficient quantities, of min¬ 
eral matter, the plants will look out for the organic matter suffi¬ 
ciently. 
I meant to manure heavily, but do not expect that manure will 
do the crop much good by supplying the animal matter, but it aids 
the soil in solving organic matter very materially. That material 
is directly soluble, and is taken up, but that is not nearly so essen¬ 
tial as the other, and that is, the aid which it affords for decompos¬ 
ing the mineral matter. 
Mr. Orledge. I have listened with a good deal of attention to 
the Professor, but I wish to say that practical men should be care- 
full how far they follow professors. They should go slow. I have 
always failed to find that a good dinner ever hurt me, and I never 
found that good manure ever hurt soils. 
Professor Dakiells. I was showing that the good came not from 
the manure, but from the change it produces in the condition of the 
soil. 
Mr. Orledge. You know how difficult it is, gentlemen, to dispute 
with professors, but still I cannot admit that the only good manure 
does is to change the condition of the soil. I believe that organic 
matter from manure is necessary in some soil. With regard to 
deep plowing, I would have you very cautious how you go into it; 
go gently. I recollect when I came to this country I had been 
used to deep plowing, and I put the plow in seven or eight inches, 
and plowed one acre a day, and had to work hard at that. And 
a man came along and says, “you are fooling away your time. I 
shall have better crops than you;” and he did, too. The fact was, 
I brought up a lot of new soil to the surface that wanted time to be 
put in condition by the sun and air to make good plant-food. I 
recollect, when a young man, occupying a farm that had about ten 
acres of land in one piece, on top of a hill, and I don t think there 
was ten inches of soil above the rock anywhere, and I think I,have 
