42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



which has been read, and in this discussion, that I want to 

 relate a little matter tending in the same direction, to show 

 the differences that come from different kinds of seed. Some 

 years ago I set out, one spring, ten thousand asparagus- 

 plants. Six thousand of them were the so-called " Conover's 

 Colossal." I paid a dollar a thousand more for them, because 

 they were supposed to be better. I set them on the best 

 part of the field, and set out the four thousand on land ad- 

 joining. For some reason or other, only a small part of the 

 six thousand plants came up, — probably about two thousand. 

 They have been an eyesore to me all these years. I have 

 threatened to plough up that portion of the field repeatedly. 

 I have not kept the asparagus separate, so as to know just 

 the number of bunches ; but I am satisfied in my own mind, 

 as well as if they had been actually counted, that I have 

 never got more than half the bunches from the six thousand 

 plants that I have from the four thousand, and the bunches 

 have been inferior in size ; not because, as I understand it, 

 they were of that particular name, but because of some de- 

 fect in the seed. They have had the same cultivation, the 

 same manure and ever}^ thing, except that they had the best 

 part of the field. I cannot tell you what I have lost by it, 

 but, I am satisfied, some hundreds of dollars. How much 

 more I shall lose if I don't plough them up, I do not know. 

 I mention that as one fact which I know in my own 

 practice. 



Capt. Moore. The Middlesex South Agricultural Society 

 examined, I think, two square rods of Dr. Sturtevant's corn 

 for a premium, and they made a hundred and thirty-two 

 bushels to the acre. According to Dr. Sturtevant's own 

 statement afterwards, when he came to sell it, there were 

 eighty bushels. I don't know, but I think, when you 

 measure a field of corn by two square rods picked out in 

 the field, it is, to say the least, pretty unreliable. 



Mr. CoMii!?^s. I want to raise a little question about ascer- 

 taining the yield of corn by measurement. I undertook to 

 raise a hundred bushels to the acre : I knew from a previous 

 yield that my land would produce forty bushels to the acre. 

 It was applied to land in just the same condition, although it 

 was not the same year. I failed to get my hundred bushels 

 of corn, although it seemed to me that it was the stoutest 



