s kindly. "Well," said he to me, "I must say that your farm has
certainly improved, but you did things so differently from what we
expected, that we could not see what you were driving at."

"I can tell you what I have been aiming at all along. 1st. To drain the
wet portions of the arable land. 2d. To kill weeds, and make the soil
mellow and clean. 3d. To make more manure."

"You have also bought some bone-dust, superphosphate, and other
artificial manures."

"True; and if I had had more money I would have bought more manure. It
would have paid well. I could have made my land as rich as it is now in
half the time."

I had to depend principally on the natural resources of the land. I got
out of the soil all I could, and kept as much of it as possible on the
farm. One of the mistakes I made was, in breaking up too much land, and
putting in too much wheat, barley, oats, peas, and corn. It would have
been better for my pocket, though possibly not so good for the farm, if
I had left more of the land in grass, and also, if I had summer-fallowed
more, and sown less barley and oats, and planted less corn.

"I do not see how plowing up the grass land," said the Deacon, "could
possibly be any better for the farm. You agricultural writers are always
telling us that we plow too much land, and do not raise grass and clover
enough."

"What I meant by saying that it would have been better for my pocket,
though possibly not so good for the farm, if I had not plowed so much
land, may need explanation. The land had been only half cultivated, and
was very foul. The grass and clover fields did not give more than half a
crop of hay, and the hay was poor in quality, and much of it half
thistles, and other weeds. I plowed this land, planted it to corn, and
cultivated it thoroughly. But the labor of keeping the corn clean was
costly, and absorbed a very large slice of the profits. _But_ the corn
yielded a far larger produce per acre than I should have got had the
land lain in grass. And as all this produce was consumed on the farm, we
made more manure than if we had plowed less land."

I have great faith in the benefits of thorough tillage--or, in other
words, of breaking up, pulverizing, and exposing the soil to the
decomposing action of the atmosphere. I look upon a good, strong soil
as a kind of storehouse of plant-food. But it is not an easy matter to
render this plant-food soluble. If it were any less soluble than it is,
it would