“As I said before,” continued the Doctor, “intelligent farmers seldom sell their straw, and they frequently purchase and consume on the farm nearly as much bran, shorts, etc., as is sent to market with the grain they sell. In the ‘Natural History of New York,’ it is stated that an acre of wheat in Western New York, of 30 bushels per acre, including straw, chaff, etc., removes from the soil 144 lbs. of mineral matter. Genesee wheat usually yields about 80 per cent. of flour. This flour contains only 0.7 per cent of mineral matter, while fine middlings contain 4 per cent; coarse middlings, 5½ per cent; shorts, 8 per cent, and bran 8½ per cent of mineral matter or ash. It follows from this, that out of the 144 lbs. of mineral matter in the crop of wheat, less than 10 lbs. is contained in the flour. The remaining 134 lbs. is found in the straw, chaff, bran, shorts, etc., which a good farmer is almost sure to feed out on his farm. But even if the farmer feeds out none of his wheat-bran, but sells it all with his wheat, the 30 bushels of wheat remove from the soil only 26 lbs. of mineral matter; and it would take more than five crops to remove as much mineral matter as one crop of wheat and straw contains. Allowing that half the ash of wheat is phosphoric acid, 30 bushels remove only 13 lbs. from the soil, and if the soil contains 4,000 lbs., it will take three hundred and seven crops, of 30 bushels each, to exhaust it.” “That is to say,” said Charley, “if all the straw and chaff is retained on the farm, and is returned to the land without loss of phosphoric acid.” “Yes,” said the Doctor, “and if all the bran and shorts, etc., were retained on the farm, it would take eight hundred crops to exhaust the soil of phosphoric acid; and it is admitted that of all the elements of plant-food, phosphoric acid is the one first to be exhausted from the soil.” I have sold some timothy hay this winter, and propose to do so whenever the price suits. But some of my neighbors, who do not hesitate to sell their own hay, think I ought not to do so, because I “write for the papers”! It ought to satisfy them to know that I bring back 30 cwt. of bran for every ton of hay I sell. My rule is to sell nothing but wheat, barley, beans, potatoes, clover-seed, apples, wool, mutton, beef, pork, and butter. Everything else is consumed on the farm--corn, peas, oats, mustard, rape, mangels, clover, straw, stalks, etc. Let us make a rough estimate of how much is sold and how much retained on a hundred-acre farm, leaving out the potatoes, beans, and live-stock. We have say: Sold. 15 acres wheat, @ 40 bushels per acre 18 tons 5 ” barley, @ 50 ” ” 6 ” 15 ” clover seed, 4 ” ” 1¾ ton. ------ Total sold 25¾ tons.