212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



made, and believed to be correct, is, that the present amount 

 exceeds two hundred and fifty thousand tons annually. 



The introduction of commercial manures into use in the United 

 States was later and slower than in Great Britain, and their employ- 

 ment is chiefly limited to a moderate distance from the seaboard. 

 Yet, it is believed that the annual consumption of superphosphate 

 now reaches one hundred thousand tons yearly, and is both steadily 

 and rapidly increasing'. 



Now consider that the trade in commercial manures has grown 

 to its present magnitude under the patronage of farmers alone — that 

 these large amounts are bought and used and paid for by a class of 

 men who are habitually cautious about introducing new ways into 

 their pi'actice, averse to parting with money except for "value 

 received," and are as capable as any other class of judging whether 

 they get money's worth for money. I do not say that a farmer 

 may not be cheated as easily as another man, — for once, — but to 

 believe that farmers, as a class, for a series of years will continue , 

 to pay out money in sums larger and larger every year, for what 

 does not give satisfaction, I can no more believe, than that five and 

 five are equal to forty. Do not the facts rather prove, that so much 

 as has been skilfully and honestly manufactured, must have been 

 very good, and very profitable at the price it bore 1 How else, by 

 any possibility, could the trade be sustained, and exhibit a steady 

 growth under the accumulated odium of all the frauds connected 

 with it ? 



Fraud is not the only reason why commercial "manures sometimes 

 fail to produce the results anticipated. Ignorance has something 

 to do with it. I have been witness to a degree of ignorance on the 

 part of a manufacturer who advertises and pufls his wares loudly 

 and persistently, which, if it had only been related to me I should 

 have been slow to believe, except upon testimony impossible to 

 discredit. And there is more or less, not very unfrequently, of 

 mismanagement in their application and use — and let me say here, 

 that ample experience has shown that the best method of using 

 either Peruvian guano, or superphosphate, or ^sh guano, is not to 

 put the whole amount used in hills, as is most often done, but to 

 compost two-thirds or three-fourths of what is to be applied with 

 barnj^ard manure, if any of this is also to be applied, and then to 

 spread and harrow it in, applying only the remainder in the hills. 

 If no other substance is to be applied to the land, then let the two 

 thirds or three-fourths be spread and harrowed in, and oiily enough 



