That growing plants draw much nourishment from the atmosphere, and appropriate largely of its constituents in building up their tissue, is certainly true; it is also certainly true that they require something of the soil besides mere anchorage. All facts go to show that if the constituents needed by the plant from the soil are not present in the soil, the efforts of the plant toward proper development are abortive? What sane farmer expects to move a heavy load over a rugged road with a team so lean and poverty-stricken that they cast but a faint shadow? Yet is he much nearer sanity when he expects farming to be pleasant and profitable, and things to _move aright_, unless his land is strong and fat? Is he perfectly sane when he thinks he can skin his farm year after year, and not finally come to the bone? The farmer on exhausted land must of necessity use manure. Manure of _some_ kind must go under, or he must go under; and to the great mass of cultivators no mode of enriching is so feasible, so cheap, and attended with such satisfactory results, as that of plowing under green crops. The old plan of leaving an exhausted farm, and going West in search of rich "government land," must soon be abandoned. Already the head of the column of land-hunters have "fetched up" against the Pacific, and it is doubtful whether their anxious gaze will discover any desirable unoccupied soil over its waters. The writer would not be understood as saying that all farms are exhausted, or that there is _no_ way of recuperation but by plowing under green crops. What he wishes understood is, that where poor, sandy, or gravelly lands are found, which bring but small returns to the owner, by subjecting them to the process indicated, such lands bring good crops of the kind under consideration. And further, that land in the proper condition to yield a maximum crop of potatoes, is fitted to grow other crops equally well. Neither would the writer be understood as arguing that a crop of clover and one of buckwheat should be turned under for each crop of potatoes; where land is already in high condition, it may not be necessary. A second growth of clover plowed under in the fall for planting early kinds, and a clean clover sod turned in _flat_ furrows in the spring, for the late market varieties, answer very well. To turn flat furrows, take the furrow-slice wide enough to have it fall completely inside the preceding one. Potatoes should not be planted year after year on the same ground; trouble with weeds and rapid deterioration of quality and quantity of tubers soon render the crop unprofitable. Loamy soil planted continuously soon becomes compact, heavy, and lifeless. Where of necessity potatoes must be grown yearly on the same soil, it is advisable to dig rather early, and bury the vines of each hill in the one last dug; then harrow level, and sow rye to be plowed under next planting time.