76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



but I tell you it will pay. Most men think tbe work is done right 

 there. But if you stop there you will find the brush will grow 

 again. But if you sow grass seed and drag it in, and there is no 

 land so rocky but you can run a drag over it, then you have made 

 clean work of it. 



There is some pasture land that hasn't got brush on it, but it is 

 sterile. There is no nitrogen in it ; there is very little phosphoric 

 acid in it, because the cattle have consumed them in milk and 

 bones. You cannot draw compost or barnyard manure on it. Is 

 there anything you can draw on it which shall enrich this land on 

 which you have done no burning ? Do yoti say that your other 

 fields require all the dressing you can get? If you can afford to 

 make grass anj^where, you can afford it in your pasture. You can 

 make it cheaper there than in your mow field, because your cattle 

 will gather your crop for you. 



You must absolutely top-dress it. You have robbed your land 

 of its mineral elements and its nitrogen, and you must top dress 

 it to make it bear a crop. Now what will you use ? I have heard 

 somebody say here in Brunswick, " I can buy all the wood ashes 

 I want at twenty cents a bushel." Wood ashes at twenty cents 

 a bushel, and you complaining that you havn't anything to put 

 on your land, and talking about going West? Give me wood 

 ashes at thirty-five cents a bushel, and I will take the poorest 

 farm in New England and get rich. You don't want anything 

 else if you can get that. That is just what you carried off; if 

 anybody else is fool enough to do the same, go and buy them. 

 You can richly afford them at twenty cents a bushel. But that is 

 not enough. There is no organic element in ashes, simply 

 mineral material. Sow 20 bushels of ashes, which at 20 cents per 

 bushel will cost you $4, with 50 pounds of sulphate of ammonia, 

 which will cost you perhaps $2, and for $6 you have a dressing 

 for an acre of land that will last you two, three or four years. I 

 say, sulphate of ammonia. Here in ]\laine you make ton^ and 

 tons of porgy pomace. I don't know whether porgy pomace is 

 the best form, but what I know as fish guano — the dried pomace 

 from the factories — you,may use as well as sulphate of ammonia, 

 and perhaps it is cheaper for Maine. Use that on your pasture 

 land with wood ashes and I warrant that you will be the richer 

 for your outlay, either in your dairy or in the growth of your 

 animals. If you havn't wood ashes and wish to put on a compo- 



