with a plough or cultivator, to secure
the growth of a generous crop. On poor soils the case is very
different.

To raise a good crop of corn on poor land, and at the least possible
expense, requires some science and much skill in the art of tillage.
Take the same field to operate in, and one farmer will grow 100
bushels of corn at half the cost per bushel that another will expend
in labor, which is money. It unfortunately happens that very skilful
farmers are few in number, in comparison with those who have failed to
study and practice all attainable improvements. To produce cheap corn
on poor land, one needs a clear understanding of what elements of the
crop air and water will furnish, and what they cannot supply. It
should be remembered that the atmosphere is precisely the same over
ground which yields 100 bushels of corn per acre, that it is over that
which produces only five bushels per acre. Now, the whole matter which
forms the stems, leaves, roots, cobs, and seeds of corn, where the
crop is 100 bushels per acre, is not part and parcel of the soil. A
harvest equal to fifty bushels per acre can be obtained without
consuming over ten per cent, of earth, as compared with the weight of
the crop. No plant can imbibe more of the substance of the soil in
which it grows, than is dissolved in water, or rendered gaseous by the
decomposition of mould.

The quantity of matter dissolved, whether organic or inorganic, during
the few weeks in which corn plants organise the bulk of their solids,
is small. From 93 to 97 parts in 100 of the dry matter, in a mature,
perfect plant, including its seeds, cob, stems, leaves, and roots, are
carbon (charcoal) and the elements of water. It is not only an
important, but an exceedingly instructive fact, that the most
effective fertilisers known in agriculture are those that least abound
in the elements of water and carbon. The unleached dry excrements of
dunghill fowls and pigeons, have five times the fertilising power on
all cereal plants that the dry dung of a grass-fed cow has, although
the latter has five times more carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, per 100
pounds, than the former. Although it is desirable to apply to the soil
in which corn is to grow as much of organised carbon and water as one
conveniently can, yet, where fertilisers have to be transported many
miles; it is important to know that such of the measure as would form
_coal_, if carefully burnt, can best be spared. The same