212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



putting 1 on a heavy harrow, well sharpened, with a strong 1 team, 

 in the month of March, when the ground is thawed say three or 

 four inches deep, and harrow it severely, and then sowing clover. 

 Can we not in that way resuscitate these old pastures, so that 

 they will produce something again ? 



Mr. Low. Travellers in the northern portion of this county 

 will find a great many acres of that kind of land which are pro- 

 ducing most luxuriant grass, the result of the application of 

 plaster and ashes. You do not need clover seed if you put on 

 ashes and plaster. 



Prof. Johnson. There is one question to which Mr. Gold re- 

 ferred in a letter to me written previous to the one which I read 

 yesterday, and that is, the waste of manure, which seems to be- 

 long to the production of some crops and not to others. Any 

 man who for twenty-five years will cultivate a number of plots of 

 land with different crops and different fertilizers, will get hold of 

 a great many facts and find a great many questions coming up 

 which it would be exceedingly interesting to discuss. This is 

 what Mr. Lawes has done. He has shown that on his land, in 

 order to get a large crop of wheat, he must use a great deal of 

 one kind of manure. I mentioned yesterday that he got 16 bushels 

 of wheat to the acre, for twenty-seven years, in unbroken succes- 

 sion, on land to which he applied no manure whatever ; that by the 

 use of 14 tons of stable manure per acre, applied annually, he was • 

 able to get 36 bushels of wheat. By using all the elements of our 

 fertilizers, with the single exception of nitrogen, applying phos- 

 phates, sulphates, and muriates of lime, magnesia, potash, and 

 soda, all the fertilizing matters which are found in ashes, in guano 

 or in stable dung, nitrogen compounds excepted, he raised the 

 crop to barely 25 bushels ; but when, to one good dose of these 

 materials, he added annually 400 lbs. of salts of ammonia, or ni- 

 trate of soda, the yield went up to 36 bushels ami held at that 

 point for years. This difference between 25 and 36 was unques- 

 tionably due to the nitrogen of the nitrate of soda or salts of 

 ammonia. If the facts admit of any other inference, I do not 

 understand the logic which can make it. 



Let us compare the quantities of nitrogen in those two applica- 

 tions. In the salts of ammonia, there were about 80 lbs. of nitro- 

 gen ; in the barn-yard manure, Mr. Lawes says about 200 lbs.; 

 but there are usually nearer 300 lbs. of nitrogen in strong stable 

 manure. It would thus appear that there must be a great loss of 



