132 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



did SO. I plowed up a quarter of au acre and put on four 

 hundred and fifty pounds, and then I cross-plowed it, as he 

 requested me. The rest of the two acres I only plowed once. 

 It was old ground, where potatoes were planted years before. 

 On the other acre and three-quarters I put a shovelful of com- 

 post in each hill. It was manure taken from the hog-yards, 

 the stable, and all about, and composted together. It had 

 been pitched over onco and made fine. As I say, I put a 

 shovelful of that manure in each hill, and put about a table- 

 spoonful of super-phosphate in a hill, and I also put about 

 the same quantity of super-phosphate in the hills where I put 

 the Mineral compound. Now for the result: when I came to 

 dig the potatoes, where I used the compost in the hill, it took 

 from thirty to forty-five hills for a bushel ; where I used Mr. 

 Hayward's Mineral Compound it took from sixty to seventy-five 

 hills for a bushel. I notice, in our county papers, certificates 

 signed by a number of good farmers in Woodstock, who have 

 used his Mineral Compound, and they speak well of it. If 

 there are any of those gentlemen here to-night, if they will 

 give their experience, and tell wherein they have derived any 

 benefit from it, I certainly would like to hear them, for we 

 want all the liglit we can get upon it. It is cheap. He says 

 that a ton of that article can be made for $9. That is so ; 

 but when he says that a ton of that compound, manufactured 

 for $9.00, is worth as much as a ton of super-phosphate, that 

 remains to be proved to me, for I have not seen it. 



I also tried it on carrots. I spread a field all over with 

 manure and then took a strip about two rods wide and sowed 

 on this compound, and I could see no difference in the growth 

 of the carrots while they were growing, and when I came to 

 harvest the crop the carrots were no better on that strip than 

 on the rest. Now, to be fair about it, I will state one thing 

 further ; for if there is any good in it I do not want to hide 

 it. The vines of the Early Rose potato which I planted on 

 the two acres where I put the compound and where I put the 

 manure, died early, and after the vines died the weeds sprang 

 up all over the field, and there was a much greater growth of 

 weeds where I put the Mineral Compound than where I put 



