200 
Annual Repoet of the 
take it—it is destructive to them; but salt will assist in furnishing 
a substance from the soil which the plants do want. 
President Stilsoi*. I think, Professor, your remarks yesterday 
would lead people astray, from the fact that you omitted to state 
that a part of the organic matter is taken up. My experience is 
that I can grow wheat and make it stand up better by the use of 
manure from stock. 
If we take the chemical analysis of a stalk of growing corn in 
its different states, we find that it varies very materially—that it 
returns a portion of its elements to the ground itself, before it ripens, 
and what remains in it, when it ripens, of organic matter, is so much 
matter abstracted from the field, and must be returned to the soil to 
keep it in good condition. 
Professor Daniells. Suppose you take a ton of manure and 
burn it, how much silicate of potash would you get in it? In the 
first place, it is about seventy per cent, water. You ought to remem¬ 
ber, if you put twenty-five tons of manure on to the laud, you return 
a very small quantity of organic material. Seventy per cent., 
and often more, of that manure is water. I want you to under¬ 
stand this; that every man wants to make all the manure he can, 
and he wants to handle that with the greatest economy, and put it 
all back upon his land. 
In my paper I was pleading for better cultivation, and I say it is 
very greatly needed in this state. I was leaving the other things 
out. I was only stating one thing, and not misstating anything. 
You want to get all the manure that you can make, or that you can 
buy, and then use plaster too, if what I said yesterday is true. I 
said, apply and use all the manure you could, and I said, apply it for 
the purpose of furnishing this organic material, and then cultivate! 
cultivate! ! cultivate! ! ! The more thoroughly the manure is mixed 
with the soil, the better growth the crops will have. I wish to say 
that while manure is beneficial, still, that it may be aided very much 
by cultivation. You want to remember this, that in all your culti¬ 
vation, everything that you do in regard to your soil should be done 
with a view to furnish those materials needed for plant-food. 
