106 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



MAKUEES. 



ESSEX. 

 From the Report of the Committee. 



Your committee regret that no entries have been made for 

 the premiums offered by the society for the best conducted 

 experiment in the preparation and application of manures, 

 whether animal, vegetable or mineral; a subject of so much 

 interest and importance to the farmer, a subject upon which 

 so much has been written, and yet one upon which so little 

 positive knowledge has been obtained, one where agricultural 

 writers and theorists, doctors and chemists, manufacturers of 

 fertilizing nostrums and their advertising agents, farmers and 

 market-gardeners, are agreed upon no two particulars con- 

 cerning their management and application. 



It requires no little courage for any one to enter the arena, 

 either as a competitor for a premium or to add to the volu- 

 minous writings already before the public, lest one should 

 make the present confusion more confounding. 



An eminent agricultural writer and theorist advocates the 

 importance of using all manure green from the barn-yard and 

 ploughing directly in, lest it should lose some of its fertilizing 

 qualities by evaporation or fermentation ; when immediately 

 a dozen others take up the refrain and continue it to the echo, 

 until any one reading our agricultural peri6dicals would be 

 led to believe that any other use of manure would be entirely 

 destructive to the interests of the farmer, while the most pro- 

 gressive farmers and market-gardeners are ready to declare 

 that such manure is unfit for present use, for the growing of 

 the roots and vegetables most valuable in the market. An- 

 other portion, equally sanguine, advocate the importance of 

 ploughing in manure full ten inches deep, lest some of its 

 good qualities should escape in the air, while the most care- 



