12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



than ever before, and three bushels of plaster applied, and six hund- 

 red bushels of oats raised from it. Tliere have been good crops 

 grown in my neighborhood. One neighbor raised from one acre, 

 eighty-two bushels shelled corn, fifty-six pounds to the bushel. 

 Another on one acre and twelve square rods, one hundred sixty-five 

 bushels of ears. This was on interval land. Another broke up 

 two acres interval land, and raised one hundred sixty bushels oats. 

 This land is flowed, and where the water backs on, it leaves the 

 surface covered with a black mud. People are becoming more im- 

 pressed with the importance of manures, and although not tnuch has 

 been yet actually accomplished, decided improvement is manifest. 



Mr. Baily of Sagadahoc thought that progress in agriculture 

 could best be advanced by learning the right use and application of 

 soils, manures and labor. Here is a great field for investigation and 

 we need besides to disseminate among the mass of the farmers what 

 a part know already. He alluded to a specimen of high farming in 

 New Jersey, which he had witnessed, and which was very successful, 

 yielding a profit of ten thousand dollars per annum. The owner 

 attributed his success to a free use of manure. In the course of bis 

 remarks he advanced the idea that it was unnecessary to seed grass 

 lands provided they were plowed deep and the proper fertilizing 

 elements applied to the soil. [This proposition was controverted by 

 Messrs. Hammatt, Cushman and others as being at variance with 

 the experience of all practical farmers ] 



Mr. B. spoke of increasing interest within the limits of the Sag- 

 adahoc society and of a greater demand for the secretary's reports, 

 and for other agricultural reading than heretofore. 



Mr. Lancaster of South Kennebec said that what is needed most 

 is to overcome the prevailing indisposition to engage in farming 

 pursuits. This has been already done to some extent. The popular 

 idea that farming don't pay, has driven large numbers of our most 

 intelligent and enterprising young men out of the business, until 

 few except elderly men were left to carry it on. Tlie stampede at 

 one time was such that the advertising columns of our agricultural 

 journals were filled with notices of farms for sale. This is not the 

 case now. The current has changed. People go into farming who 

 have been engaged in other pursuits. They are beginning to find 

 it will pay. 



