THE STATE FARM. 83 



ments is in reality nothing more than the additional care and 

 attention they require to secure perfect accuracy, and this is an 

 item almost too insignificant to be taken into account. Nor are 

 the experiments on the field more expensive. They require 

 some time and careful observation to secure accuracy, but apart 

 from this, their cost is nothing. This year we have had seventy- 

 six acres under cultivation, and of course, in order to cultivate 

 properly so large a space, all of which is necessary to meet the 

 wants of the institution, some manures must be bought. We 

 cannot make quite enough for the place with the stock which 

 the farm can keep. Hence it makes very little difference, so 

 far as expense to the State is concerned, whether one acre of 

 corn is cultivated with barnyard manure, the next with guano, 

 the next with super-phosphate, the next with poudrctte, and the 

 next with muriate of lime, or whether they are all dressed with 

 barnyard manure, guano or super-phosphate. It is only the 

 difference in the cost of the different kinds of manure, and the 

 risk of "procuring a few bushels less of good sound corn from 

 some one or more of these few acres where the concentrated 

 manure was used, which is to be considered. 



Now perhaps there is some one here who is ready to say that 

 these manures are all " new fanglcd notions " and worse than 

 useless. Well, perhaps they are, and whether they are or not, 

 is the very thing we are trying to find oiit. If they are so, we 

 shall be honest enough to tell you ; for every experiment is 

 detailed in the Report of the Board of Agriculture, which every 

 farmer in the State can procure free of cost, in the manner 

 already indicated. 



But no sensible man would be so unreasonable as to suppose 

 one trial could prove any thing satisfactorily, or two, or three. 

 Most of them are of such a nature as to require repetition. A 

 series of experiments is what we want. We want unimpeach- 

 able facts, and we cannot rely on facts which are supported only 

 by the result of a single experiment. When we get a sufficient 

 number of facts, we, as farmers, can draw our own deductions 

 to suit our particular soil and circumstances. Now I say such 

 a series of experiments as are conducted by disinterested men 

 at the State Farm, if their results could be put into the hands 

 of every farmer in the Commonwealth, would be worth millions 

 of dollars to the State. 



