38 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



phoric acid have drifted out to the ocean and the nitrogen only 

 is left. You cannot grow a crop without potash and phosphoric 

 acid, and the muck could not have been successful in any of the 

 combinations because it did not afford the minerals named. The 

 users but added one nitrogenous fertilizer to another. I believe 

 this to be the secret of the difficulty. I began to use potash and 

 phosphoric acid with my muck, and found that when I added 

 fourteen pounds of potash and thirty-five pounds of acid phos- 

 phate, or twenty-five pounds plain phosphate, to a ton, I received, 

 on every crop but one, a little more from ten tons of muck than 

 from ten tons of yard manure. I entertain a hopeful view of 

 the continued use of muck. I am convinced that it is worthy 

 of your study. If you succeed with it, you probably have 

 all the nitrogen you will want for a century, in the muck beds 

 around you. 



Fourth, I rely heavily upon rotations as a means of crop 

 increase. It is nature's method, and has been pursued by man 

 far back in history, and is with intelligent peoples pursued in 

 varied forms and often elaborately. At the Missouri State 

 Experiment Station I received in a four years rotation trial, 

 when wheat followed wheat in the fifth crop, when the rotation 

 started its second round : 



Wheat after wheat unmanured, per acre I3-9 1 bushels. 



Wheat after wheat, ten tons manure yearly. ... 24.28 



Wheat in rotation, unmanured 30. 16 



Wheat in rotation, manured 38 . 08 



An unmanured rotation gave better results than a manured 

 non-rotation. At Utah, with several types of rotation, I received 

 a large advantage in rotation. I will state a few of the reasons, 

 economic and scientific, for the adoption of my eight years' rota- 

 tion. By a proper management of crops, team work is in such 

 succession as to employ horses continuously. By this arrange- 

 ment I have handled forty acres per pair of horses, a far larger 

 ratio of tillage ground per acre than is common or can be in the 

 present system of our farming. The same truth holds as to 

 men, and I employ the same number the year around. This 

 aids in settling the labor problem and as it involves properly 

 the cottage home it relieves the household of the farmer of a 

 burden. 





