70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The life-giving elements are being drained from our farms and 

 are borne on the current of every rivulet and creek that flows near 

 our factories, tanneries, and slaughter-houses, — to say nothing of 

 the rivers of drainage from our cities — all bearing to old ocean, the 

 very foundation of our material prosperity, while scarcely an effort 

 is put forth to dam up and divert any of these streams. 



As an illustration of waste, — on one occasion one of your Com- 

 mittee bought a quantity of manure under the name of superphos- 

 phate of lime, at a cost of over fifty dollars per ton — which proved 

 a good investment — and the article was made up with a large 

 percentage of tanner's waste. 



At the same time two tanneries were in operation within a mile 

 of our land, so constructed and worked, that all the waste was 

 " sluiced" into the river. In a single instance, with much diffi- 

 culty, we obtained a few bushels of " fleshings," from a lot of 

 " slaughter hides," for a compost heap. And these mills still work 

 on, like nearly all the larger tanneries in the State, year after year, 

 with thousands and millions of our industrial capital running to 

 waste through their hungry maws. 



The value of marine manures, to which the attention of those 

 farmers not directly upon the coast has recently been directed, 

 proves to be considerable ; and it becomes an important question, 

 to be solved as soon as possible, what can we afford to pay for 

 fish guano at our gates. 



Of the many waste substances of the farm that are valuable 

 fertilizers, and which are more frequently sufiered to be wasted, 

 we can now onl}'- mention, — First, Soap Suds. This is a most 

 grateful application, to be made at any season of the year to the 

 surface of any lands about the house that are required to contribute 

 to our pleasure or our sustenance through the vegetation they sus- 

 tain, whether it be the lawn, the flower border, the vegetable gar- 

 den, vines, shrubbery or fruit trees. Second, Bones. These are 

 now receiving increased attention, since farmers have discovered 

 that their cows are suffering from the lack of soluble phosphate of 

 lime in the soil of the pasture and the hay field, and consequently 

 a deficiency of that sustenance in the grasses. It has been carried 

 off in the formation of milk and bones, and very little of it has been 

 returned. 



To supply the cow in her extreme necessity, her owner gives 

 her bone-meal. The better way is to feed the soil. We who have 



