HOME RESOURCES FOR MANURES. 49 



The crops must also be harvested and secured at the right 

 time so as to avoid loss from waste or deterioration. An- 

 other condition of success is, that the land cultivated must 

 be brought and kept up to a high state of fertility. To do 

 this the material used must not only be abundant in quan- 

 tity, but suitable in quality. Nothing better for this pur- 

 pose has been found than animal excrements, liquid and solid, 

 carefully saved and properly secured, and used either alone, 

 or in combination with other suitable material. 



It is my deliberate judgment, formed after careful observa- 

 tion, inquiry, and experiment, that neither science nor art 

 has yet succeeded in finding a reliable and universal substi- 

 tute for animal manures; and I firmly maintain that the 

 farmer should never allow himself to be coaxed, wheedled, 

 or bull-dozed into an abandonment of their use by the voice 

 of any charmer interested in the manufacture or sale of 

 commercial fertilizers, charm he never so insinuatingly or 

 persistently. I would not be understood as counselling the 

 entire disuse of these fertilizers : some of them may be used 

 to some advantage under favorable conditions of the soil and 

 season ; but I apprehend that the profit derived from the use 

 of others has too often been an unknown or a negative quan- 

 tity. Notwithstanding the protection, either real or imagi- 

 nary, that the fertilizer law of our State attempts to afford 

 against the sale of adulterated fertilizers, the chances for 

 deception are so great, and cases of failure attending their 

 use are so many, as to justify great caution in regard to them. 

 Moreover, their cost to the consumer seems to me to be out of 

 reasonable proportion to their real value as fertilizers. 



The prudent farmer will exhaust the resources of his farm 

 for the production of home-made manure, before expending 

 his money lavishly for the purchase of that which is made, 

 like Dobson's razors, to sell. He will find it much more to his 

 advantage to spend time and money in devising and adopting 

 measures for securing and using the abundant material for 

 making manure that is to be found upon the great majority 

 of our Massachusetts farms. The forests, fields, meadows, 

 and the roadsides even, are rich in such material. If, after 

 using all the manure he can make in this way, our farmer 

 finds that liis supply is insufScient, and he feels able and dis- 

 posed to experiment, it may be well for him to do so cau- 



