have all leached out of the land centuries ago. Turning over,
and fining a manure-heap, if other conditions are favorable, cause rapid
fermentation with the formation of carbonate of ammonia, and other
soluble salts. Many of our soils, to the depth of eight or ten inches,
contain enough nitrogenous matter in an acre to produce two or three
thousand pounds of ammonia. By stirring the soil, and exposing it to the
atmosphere, a small portion of this nitrogen becomes annually available,
and is taken up by the growing crops. And it is so with the other
elements of plant-food. Stirring the soil, then, is the basis of
agriculture. It has been said that we must return to the soil as much
plant-food as we take from it. If this were true, nothing could be sold
from the farm. What we should aim to do, is to develop as much as
possible of the plant-food that lies latent in the soil, and not to sell
in the form of crops, cheese, wool, or animals, any more of this
plant-food than we annually develop from the soil. In this way the
"condition" of the soil would remain the same. If we sell _less_ than we
develop, the condition of the soil will improve.

By "condition," I mean the amount of _available_ plant-food in the soil.
Nearly all our farms are poorer in plant-food to-day than when first
cleared of the original forest, or than they were ten, fifteen, or
twenty years later. In other words, the plants and animals that have
been sold from the farm, have carried off a considerable amount of
plant-food. We have taken far more nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash,
etc., out of the soil, than we have returned to it in the shape of
manure. Consequently, the soil must contain less and less of plant-food
every year. And yet, while this is a self-evident fact, it is,
nevertheless, true that many of these self-same farms are more
productive now than when first cleared, or at any rate more productive
than they were twenty-five or thirty years ago.

Sometime ago, the Deacon and I visited the farm of Mr. Dewey, of Monroe
Co., N.Y. He is a good farmer. He does not practice "high farming" in
the sense in which I use that term. His is a good example of what I term
slow farming. He raises large crops, but comparatively few of them. On
his farm of 300 acres, he raises 40 acres of wheat, 17 acres of Indian
corn, and 23 acres of oats, barley, potatoes, roots, etc. In other
words, he has 80 acres in crops, and 220 acres in grass--not permanent
grass. He le