acre; but in the first place you want to take the different conditions between England and Wisconsin.

Every particle of organic matter, except the grain raised upon the soil, is put back again. There is no straw or hay sold from the farm scarcely, and the grain that is sold, is sold mostly in the form of beef, and if it is sold as grain, a large proportion of the money which is obtained from the sale of that grain is used in the manufacture of manure and returning it to the soil again.

Now if farming is done in this way-if there are large quantities of organic matter placed back upon the soil each year, you can continue to use large quantities of lime. But, even in England, the large quantities of lime that were used forty years ago, are not used now. They have learned the fact that they can only use lime when they have very large quantities of organic matter in the soil. There are some localities where the soil scarcely contains any lime -where the rocks from which the soil is formed are granitic rocks. Where the water is soft there is not sufficient lime in the soil for plants, but the amount of lime that plants require is exceedingly small. The ash of plants is scarcely ever over three per cent.

In all our soils in the West there is no deficiency of lime for the use of plants. Lime is an indirect manure, and is not used directly by plants, and that is true of other manures as we attempted to prove to you yesterday.

President BASCOм. I didn't hear the professor's paper, but if I understood him, he says, "lime is chiefly beneficial because it is to act on the organic matter in the soil, and put it in a favorable condition for the plants." I would like to have him reconcile his second position when he says at another time, that "the organic matter is to put the mineral matter in proper condition."

Professor DANIELLS. Nearly all the nourishment which plants take up from the soil is inorganic matter, almost absolutely all of it. This is contradicted by men who say they have been raising plants all their lives, but I never investigated it, but simply have the fact that for more than one hundred years there have been men who have made this their life study, and they have found this to be true by actual experiment.

Organic matter through the soil is not necessary to the growth of plants, as I told you yesterday, if it were, you could not grow plants in coal-ashes and powdered brick-dust, which you can do. In de

composition, the organic matter in the soil produces a large quantity of carbonic acid, and large quantities of other acids-organic acids, humic acid, etc., and those acids hasten the decomposition of the soil. When the water is charged with them, the mineral matter is taken up.

Now there is some organic matter very probably taken in through the roots, but what we wish to keep in mind at all times, is, that the organic matter will take care of itself, if we will furnish a sufficient amount of mineral material, or nitrogenous compounds. As we hasten the decomposition of the organic matter, we hasten the conditions that are necessary for the changing of the soil.

There is a little too much chemistry in the composition of soils, for me to make it plain to you. All clay from fertile soils which have an absorptive power for the gases of the atmosphere, and for the material which is held in solution by the waters, have a large absorptive power for ammonia. I think, indeed, all fertilizing materials which we can bring into soils are compound silicates. There are silicates of ash, alumina, and potassa, and the principal object is to obtain the potash in combination with them.

The salts of lime will act upon the soil by taking the place of the potash; by allowing the potash to be set free and allowing the plants to take it. So all manures act largely in an indirect man

ner.

We may put manures in the soil, which contain just those ingrediants that the plants want. Stable manures contain considerable of just the organic ingrediant the soil wants in a form which is easily changed into the form needed for the plant. But the organic matter is not entirely useful for the decomposition of the soil, but partially so. Liebig's theory was that there was not anything but organic matter.

Question. I understood that the lime takes the place of the potash.

Professor DANIELLS. The lime may do that.

Question. I have seen instances of it, where it was put on the leaves of plants; for instance, potatoes that were looking yellow, they would then grow green and nice.

Professor DANIELLS. Plants take in nothing but gases through the leaves; they do not take in any organic matter in that way. We have been experimenting on the University farm for some time

with new kinds of seeds, planting new varieties and testing them. and since 1872 we have been testing the Fultz wheat. That is a winter wheat; probably it is a red wheat; but is lightish colored. We have sown it three years, and we raised the first year thirtythree and one-half bushels, and at that time we sowed several other varieties and they all killed by the side of it. In 1873 it yielded twenty bushels to the acre; last year thirty-five bushels to the acre with simple ordinary culture. Last year it was raised on new land, no other crops ever having been raised on it. It had protection from the north by timber ten rods wide between the wheat and the lake. You want to remember that manures furnish quite a large portion of food; the larger portion of it is mineral food and the smaller part of it is organic food.

We

The atmosphere is filled with just what your plants want. are sending up from this town to-day a great many tons, from coal that we are burning. Every twelve pounds of coal forms forty-four pounds of carbonic acid gas, and the principal material of which plants are composed is carbon, and that is organic-it will burn.

Now plants take this substance-carbonic acid gas-from the atmosphere and decompose it, and give the oxygen back again to the air, and takes the carbon in that way, and with what mineral matter it needs, which it takes from the soil, it builds up its structure in that way. So, the oxygen of the soil is the oxygen of the mineral matter, and the reason the organic matter assists the growth of the plant is, the plant can only take up that material in solution, and when the plants have taken up all the soluble mineral material they can get, when that is completed, the soil is barren-that is, when you have taken out all those materials. There is plenty of organic matter left yet for the soil to get, because that is furnished from the atmosphere. But what we must depend upon for the fertility of the soil is to keep this mineral matter constantly changing, and what we must do is to keep changing it, that which is not soluble into soluble form, and bring more and more of that insoluble matter into soluble matter. Now, of course, this is not all, but largely the office that manure performs. Now we apply special manure often for bringing into the soil just what the soil wants. We apply others when the soil wants potash.

There is nothing in salt that plants want-the plants will not

take it-it is destructive to them; but salt will assist in furnishing a substance from the soil which the plants do want.

President STILSON. 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 remember, 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 understand 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 cultivation, everything that you do in regard to your soil should be done with a view to furnish those materials needed for plant-food.

GYPSUM, OR LAND PLASTER, AND HOW TO USE IT

BY N. E. ALLEN, FOX LAKE.

There has been much discussion in the agricultural papers, and otherwise, in reference to the benefits or results of plaster use. Perhaps the opinion of one who has had some experience and observation in reference to it may be of interest to the public at large; and in no way could the information be so well communicated as in this farmers' convention. This is the proper place to compare notes and judge of results. It is emphatically the farmers graduating school. There is nothing to which I look forward to with more interest than this annual farmers' convention.

I shall not endeavor to explain the chemical properties of plaster, or its chemical action, but only state my experiences and observations in its use.

How and when should it be used, are questions the farmers of Wisconsin and the northwest are asking. Some are making failures, others indifferent success, some are meeting with entire success in its use. The question is what causes this difference. Is it in the soil, or not knowing how to use it? In our opinion it is both. Some soils are better adapted to its use than others, still in my opinion almost any of the dry lands of Wisconsin would be benefited by its use if properly applied. The question then is, how and when should it be used? Always in seeding land to clover, it should be sown just before the seed is sown, and cultivated in, unless it can be sown long enough before to have it wet, dissolved and mixed with the soil ready to act with the first growth of the plant.

There has a very erronious impression been entertained in the public mind in this regard, particularly in our state. People use it as they did East, when we have a climate, soil and quality of plaster all different. We have a dryer climate than at the East, particularly the last of May or the first of June. Plaster will do no good while it remains a dry dust on the surface of the ground or on the leaf of the plant. It must be wet, dissolved and incorporated with the soil before it can act.