PRIZE ESSAYS. 



ON THE PREPARATION AND USE OF MANURES. 



BY WILLIS GAYLORD, OF OTISCO, N. Y. 



Of all the pursuits to which mankind, from necessity or inclina- 

 tion, have devoted themselves, there is none more honorable, — 

 Introduc- Certainly none more useful, — than that of agriculture. To 

 tion. pursue this business successfully, knowledge, extensive and 

 varied, is required; for, although a man may succeed by following 

 the beaten paths of his predecessors, occasions will frequently arise, 

 when the end desired may be attained by methods much shorter than 

 those usually adopted, if the farmer is able to form and apply them. 

 It is here that science has, within a few years, rendered the most es- 

 sential aid to agriculture. Sometimes, reasoning from well known 

 effects to their causes, the agricultural chemist has placed in the hands 

 of the farmer the means of producing results, always desirable, but 

 which, under the older systems of farming, with his utmost care, he 

 frequently failed of obtaining. Again, taking well established facts 

 in animal or vegetable physiology as his starting point, he has ar- 

 rived at results of the highest practical importance, and is enabled to 

 render more certain and effective the more tardy operations of na- 

 ture. In no department of agricultural industry, it is believed, have 

 the labors of science been more beneficial or more apparent than in 

 that of the preparation and use of manures; certain it, is there is no 

 department more deserving attention, or where an elucidation of the 

 principles and laws that govern the growth of plants, acts with a 

 more direct and energetic influence. 



A definition of the term manure, may be necessary, in order 



to treat the subject understandingly, as different individuals use 



. the word in widely different senses, some in a wide, and 



tions. some in a limited one. A few instances of the meaning 



put upon the term will be given from a few of the modern writers 



[Senate No. 63. J I 



