ies on a creek or river, while other
portions are higher and drier. In the spring of the year, a stream of
water runs through a part of the farm from the adjoining hills down to
the creek or river. The farm now supports ten head of cows, three
horses, half a dozen sheep, and a few pigs. The land is worth $75 per
acre, but does not pay the interest on half that sum. It is getting
worse instead of better. Weeds are multiplying, and the more valuable
grasses are dying out. What is to be done?

In the first place, let it be distinctly understood that the land is
_not_ exhausted. As I have before said, the productiveness of a farm
does not depend so much on the absolute amount of plant-food which the
soil contains, as on the amount of plant-food which is immediately
available for the use of the plants. An acre of land that produces half
a ton of hay, may contain as much plant-food as an acre that produces
three tons of hay. In the one case the plant-food is locked up in such a
form that the crops cannot absorb it, while in the other it is in an
available condition. I have no doubt there are fields on the farm I am
alluding to, that contain 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and an equal amount of
phosphoric acid, per acre, in the first six inches of the surface soil.
This is as much nitrogen as is contained in 100 tons of meadow-hay, and
more phosphoric acid than is contained in 350 tons of meadow-hay. These
are the two ingredients on which the fertility of our farms mainly
depend. And yet there are soils containing this quantity of plant-food
that do not produce more than half a ton of hay per acre.

In some fields, or parts of fields, the land is wet and the plants
cannot take up the food, even while an abundance of it is within reach.
The remedy in this case is under-draining. On other fields, the
plant-food is locked up in insoluble combinations. In this case we must
plow up the soil, pulverize it, and expose it to the oxygen of the
atmosphere. We must treat the soil as my mother used to tell me to treat
my coffee, when I complained that it was not sweet enough. "I put plenty
of sugar in," she said, "and if you will stir it up, the coffee will be
sweeter." The sugar lay undissolved at the bottom of the cup; and so it
is with many of our soils. There is plenty of plant-food in them, but it
needs stirring up. They contain, it may be, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and
other plant-food in still greater proportion, and we are only getting a