20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fertilizers, improved implements, and labor-saving machinery, 

 it may be made to appear that we can produce corn of a 

 better qualit3% and perhaps cheaper, than we can buy of our 

 Western neighbors ; but I know I am trespassing on ground 

 that is to be fully and ably occupied by my friend, Dr. 

 Sturtevant of Framingham, who is advertised to vspeak to 

 you on this interesting subject. 



Having referred to special fertilizers, I cannot allow this 

 opportunity to pass without again alluding to them, and 

 expressing my belief that the products known in the 

 market as the Stockbridge Fertilizers are of incalculable 

 lvalue. Indirectly, I suppose, we are indebted to the Agri- 

 ' cultural College, which gave to Professor Stockbridge the 

 opportunity to experiment upon and to produce them. 



If the college is fairly entitled to that credit, and if it had 

 accomplished nothing more, I hold that the State has re- 

 ceived ample compensation for its bounty to that institution ; 

 but it has done and is doinsr much more : its usefulness and 

 its power is beginning to be felt all over this Commonwealth. 

 What has it done for Southborough ? I answer with the 

 names of Thompson, Brewer, and Choate, honored graduates 

 of that college : the education they have there received 

 enables them to survey their farms, analyze their soils, con- 

 struct their buildings properly, build roads, and thus be an 

 instruction, example, and assistance to their less favored 

 neighbors. 



To your Board it is largely due that our farmers can 

 safely, and with confidence, invest their money for fertilizei"s ; 

 for you have so influenced legislation, that now the law 

 protects the buyer, and punishes the impostor. Under this 

 safeguard the sale has rapidly increased, and is still increas- 

 ing, all thanks to vour Board and to Professor Stockbridge 

 and to the State ; for you have made the cultivation of our 

 rugged soil more easy, more productive, and more profitable. 



In this connection, I desire to thank the Agricultural 

 Club of Boston, of which the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder is 

 president, for their generous gift of one hundred dollars, to 

 be aAvarded in premiums for the best collections of corn 

 exhibited here. The splendid show which so richly adorns 

 the walls of this hall furnishes ample material for the de- 

 liberations of vour Committee of Awards. 



