SECRETARY'S REPORT. 229 



ing lands is very beneficial, but too expensive, if barnyard 

 manure alone is used, so much passes off by evaporation. A 

 compost of one-half or two-thirds turf or swamp muck, and one- 

 third good manure, is quite as beneficial to the land, and proba- 

 bly better or more enduring than all manure. If ashes are 

 mixed in this compost it is all the better. But if stable manure 

 alone or in compost is to be applied, it should be in autumn, so 

 that the frosts of winter may incorporate it with the soil." 



Another farmer, of great experience and observation, in Ply- 

 mouth county, says: "I top-dress generally late in. the fall, 

 but should prefer early spring dressing, if we could cart on the 

 fields without injury, and the time could be spared from other 

 business. My land is chiefly of a cold, tenacious soil, and a 

 compost is made 'of one-fourth stable manure and three-fourths 

 light loam. For warm land peat mud would be used instead of 

 the loam. Twenty common ox-cart loads, from thirty-three to 

 thirty -five bushels each to the acre, is as small a dressing as can 

 be judiciously applied. Double that quantity would not be 

 excessive." A practical farmer, of Norfolk county, says : 

 " With respect to top-dressing for mowing lands, I would state, 

 that for several years we have been in the habit of raising from 

 one to three acres of early potatoes for market. We have 

 usually dug them early in August, and before the tops were 

 dead. The tops are taken directly from the field, and spread on 

 the mowing lands, to very great advantage. We think the tops 

 from an acre of potatoes sufficient to top-dress an acre of mow- 

 ing land, and the effect is equal to three or four cords of good 

 manure." 



The practice alluded to in this extract is worthy of a careful 

 trial by those who are so situated as to adopt it. It is known 

 that the tops of potatoes contain a large percentage of the 

 organic elements of plants. 



Fromberg found in 100 lbs. of the leaves in a natural state, 

 from .82 to .92 per cent, of nitrogen, and that 100 lbs. of leaves 

 dried contain from 5.12 to 5.76 per cent, of nitrogen. If his 

 results arc correct, and there is no reason to distrust them, we 

 add to the land 50 lbs. of inorganic salts, besides neai'ly 20 lbs. 

 of nitrogen among the organic constituents of every ton of pota- 

 to tops. This would make a ton of them equal in value more 

 than two tons of the best Ichaboe guano. 



