SECRETARY'S REPORT. 41 



their adaptation to any given crop. Probabl}', upon no subject 

 connected with agriculture, is there greater diversity of opinion 

 among intelligent cultivators, than upon the value of such an- 

 alyses; some extolling them as indispensible and reliable, wliile 

 others decry them as uncertain and useless. The trutli proba- 

 bl}^ lies between. It cannot be doubted that in numerous in- 

 stances, barrenness can be clearly traced by means of analysis 

 to the absence of some needful clement, and a cheap and easy 

 remedy thus indicated, to illustrate which we quote the follow- 

 ing from an address of Hon. M. P. Wilder: "We have been 

 favored by a gentleman of large attainments and celebrity in the 

 various departments of science, with the results of the analysis 

 of the soils of more than one hundred farms in the State of New 

 Jersey. Some of these may not be uninteresting, as felicitous 

 illustrations of the advantages of science applied to agriculture. 

 He analysed the soil of a field for J. J. Scoiield, on which he 

 desired to raise ruta bagas. It was found deficient of the fol- 

 lowing constituents of that crop, viz : phosphate of lime, pot- 

 ash, organic substances, including a slight quantity of animal or 

 nitrogenous matter; these being supplied, the result was four- 

 teen hundred bushels to the acre, as per certificate to the Legisla- 

 ture. He also analyzed the soil of a field for Dr. John Wood- 

 hull, which he had appropriated to the growth of wheat, and 

 from which he obtained on the preceding year, less than fifteen 

 bushels to the acre. After supplying the deficient constituents, 

 he obtained the succeeding year, fifty-seven bushels to the acre. 

 Another instance was on the farm of Robert Rennie, certified to, 

 before the committee of the Legislature, showing the great ad- 

 vantage of subsoiling and thorough cultivation. It was discov- 

 ered by chemical analysis, that the surface soil was deficient in 

 constituents which abounded in the subsoil. He prescribed 

 subsoiling, and a thorough mixture of the upper and lower soils. 

 Some gentlemen who came to witness the operation, went away 

 in disgust at the great depth of the ploughing ; but the success 

 of the experiment at length changed their disgust into admira- 

 tion. The preceding crops, were fifteen bushels of corn, and 

 sixty bushels of potatoes ; but the succeeding, one hundred and 

 sixty bushels of ears of corn, and three hundred and fifty bush- 

 els of potatoes. Such facts have been obtained by other 



