AGRICULTURE OE MASSACHUSETTS. 



OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. 



From an Address before the Essex Agricultural Society. 



BY JAMES J. H. GREGORY. 



I have said that the field of observation and experiment was 

 not yet exhausted, that we stand but on the borders of a great 

 land of promise. To every man who believes that for every 

 effect there must be an adequate cause, this is but a self-evident 

 proposition. To illustrate is almost superfluous. For myself I 

 know not as yet how just to balance the manure applied to 

 vines in kind and quality, so as to keep a proper equilibrium 

 between the vine and its fruit, that there may be neither an 

 excess of vine for the fruit, nor an excess of fruit for the vine. 

 I know not how fully to correct the inequality, should the sea- 

 son prove a wet one and over-develop the vine, or, on the other 

 hand a dry one with the opposite effect. I know not as yet how 

 a squash vine or its roots should be pruned to aid in the growth 

 or ripening of its fruit, and how far a wet season may affect 

 •any such plan, or a dry season, or the lateness of the season, 

 though I am certain that these have a modifying effect. 

 Squashes in the Marrow and Hubbard varieties usually begin 

 to appear between the seventeenth and twenty-third leaves, 

 very rarely one may be found appearing at the footstalk of the 

 seventh, eighth or ninth leaf; such squashes ripen earlier than 

 others of the field ; how far will the seed of such squashes 

 possess the characteristics of the parent ? Will seed from the 

 stem end, middle or calyx end, exceed in yielding, or vary the 

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