"What! have a chemist prescribe for 'em like a doctor?" sneered the squire. "Mr. Walters, the rich city chap who bought Roger's worn-out farm, tried that to his heart's content, and mine too. He had a little of the dirt of each part of his farm analyzed, you know, and then he sent to New York for his phosphates, his potashes, his muriates, and his compound-super-universal panacea vegetates, and with all these bad-smelling mixtures--his barn was like a big agricultural drug-store--he was going to put into his skinned land just the elements lacking. In short, he gave his soil a big dose of powders, and we all know the result. If he had given his farm a pinch of snuff better crops ought to have been sneezed. No chemicals and land doctors for me, thank you. Beg pardon, Marvin! no reflections on your calling, but doctorin' land don't seem profitable for those who pay for the medicine." They all laughed except Webb, who seemed nettled, but who quietly said, "Squire, will you please tell us what your house is made of?" "Good lumber, sir." "Well, when passing one day, I saw a fine stalk of corn in one of your fields. Will you also tell us what that was made of? It must have weighed, with the ears upon it, several pounds, and it was all of six feet high. How did it come into existence?" "Why, it grew," said the squire, sententiously. "That utterance was worthy of Solomon," remarked Dr. Marvin, laughing. "It grew," continued Webb, "because it found the needed material at hand. I do not see how Nature can build a well-eared stalk of corn without proper material any more than you could have built your house without lumber. Suppose we have a soil in which the elements that make a crop of corn do not exist, or are present in a very deficient degree, what course is left for us but to supply what is lacking? Because Mr. Walters did not do this in the right way, is no reason why we should do nothing. If soil does not contain the ingredients of a crop, we must put them there, or our labor goes for nothing". "Well, of course there's no gettin' around that; but yard manure is all I want. It's like a square meal to a man, and not a bit of powder on his tongue." "No one wants anything better than barn-yard manure for most purposes, for it contains nearly all the elements needed by growing plants, and its mechanical action is most beneficial to the soil. But how many acres will you be able to cover with this fertilizer this spring?" "That's just the rub," the squire answered. "We use all we have, and when I can pick it up cheap I buy some; but one can't cover a whole farm with it, and so in spite of you some fields get all run out."