SECRETARY'S REPORT. 39 



One (ewe) for . 



Four for ...... 



Was.oflered $6 per head for thirty-eight, amounting to 



Total income, ...... $743 50 



Equal to $6.70 per head. 



The above sheep were Spanish Merinos, and samples of the wool 

 were presented with the statement. 



An experiment in the use of Superphosphate of Lime. 



S. F. Perley — Dear Sir: — At. your request, I send you tlie fol- 

 lowing statement of my experiment with Superphosphate of Lime 

 and puynpkins among corn. About the middle of May last, I plowed 

 a field that had been in grass five years, and the yield had become 

 so reduced that it was unprofitable for hay. After plowing, I 

 spread on stable manure at the rate of seven or eight cords per 

 acre, and harrowed it in. I also procured of Kendall & Whitney, 

 a barrel of Coe's Superphosphate, and mixed it with about half its 

 bulk of plaster, and directed a quantity, perhaps two or three 

 spoonfuls, to be put in each hill of corn and slightly covered before 

 dropping the seed. When the man at work dropping the fertili- 

 zer had gone over nearly half the field, he came and told me that 

 the Super-phosphate would not hold out to go over the whole at 

 the rate directed. I told him to diminish the quantity so as to 

 make it go over the whole, except six rows through the middle of 

 the field to be left without any. But on these six rows I directed 

 him to put about the same quantity of plaster to a hill that in the 

 mixture would go upon the rest of the field, so that I might fairly 

 test the effect of the Superphosphate. I gave the boy who drop- 

 ped the corn some pumpkin seeds to plant with it, and being a 

 liberal handed boy, he bestowed all his pumpkin seeds on the first 

 sixteen rows. At the first hoeing I had a gill or more of ashes put 

 on each hill through the field. 



The result. After the corn was up nearly large enough for the 

 second hoeing, one of my neighbors remarked that a strip of my 

 corn through the middle of the field looked as though it had fainted 

 away. There was a marked difference in the growth through the 

 whole season. At harvesting, the yield was as follows : 



Six rows without Superphosphate, eight bushels of ears good 

 corn, three small or unripe. 



