144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



manure upon mowing-lands in very warm weather, you will 

 never see any benefit from it ? 



Dr. Stuktevant. If I have a horse that requires two 

 pailfuls of water a day to keep him alive, and I give him 

 two drops a day, I shall expect the death of that horse, even 

 if I give him all the oats he can eat. I can put all the 

 manure on my farm on my grass-land, and not increase my 

 grass-crop, because I have only a certain amount of \Yater to 

 raise it. I can supply the water, and raise my grass-crop. 

 There is a whole circle of sciences, coming in. 



Major PhijSTNEY (of Barnstable). One of the advantages 

 in connection with such meetings of farmers as these is, that 

 they afford an opportunity for the interchange of views upon 

 these various questions, and we go home and apply the 

 knowledge thus obtained upon our various farms. I some- 

 times think, when I am among farmers, of the old saying, 

 " that he who makes two spears of grass grow where but one 

 grew before is a public benefactor." I feel as though we 

 were more particularly among public benefactors here. I 

 am glad that our State has been doing something for the 

 promotion of this great interest. I go home to my own 

 county and see what has been done since the State Board 

 of Agriculture was formed, twenty-five years ago. It was a 

 sort of inspiration, growing out of this interchange of opin- 

 ions in regard to the culture of crops, forestry, and the rais- 

 ing of fruits. Early in the meetings of the Board, the matter 

 of forestry was discussed. I went home, and I found that the 

 pitch-pine was perfectly adapted to that section of the State, 

 and I commenced planting that tree. My friends said that 

 my children's children might derive some benefit from the 

 culture of the pitch-pine ; but I have to-day, growing from 

 the planting of the seed, trees that girth more than my body. 

 And what has grown out of the movement that took place 

 from the State's interest in agriculture at that time ? The 

 increase in assessable property in that county to-day is more 

 than two millions of dollars, growing out of the growth of 

 the pine in a few sections of that county. 



Then followed cranberry-culture. I am not going to oc- 

 cupy the time of the meeting ; but I want to show what has 

 been done by the interchange of opinions amoDg farmers. 

 We found that we had soil, when we came to look over other 



