112 MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTURE. 



dred pounds phosphatic blood-guano, one-fourth with one 

 hundred pounds muriate of potash, one-fourth with one hun- 

 dred pounds phosphatic blood-guano, and one hundred pounds 

 muriate of potash. 



A part of my potato-piece, being exhausted land, ploughed 

 last autumn for the first time for many years, I dressed as 

 follows : — 



Spread at the rate of five casks of lime per acre in the 

 autumn, and in the spring four hundred pounds phosphatic 

 blood-guano, three hundred pounds muriate of potash, and 

 two hundred pounds of nitrate of soda. I have not the figures 

 at hand to tell the exact amount of land thus treated, but it is 

 sufficient to say that I also measured another portion of land 

 of the same character, which was manured with barn-yard 

 manure in the hill, and ascertained the amount of the crop on 

 each piece. The land with chemical manure yielded thirty- 

 five bushels. The land with barn-yard manure yielded ninety- 

 seven bushels. The potatoes were much injured by rot, esti- 

 mated loss being thirty-three per cent. 



The fodder-corn was sown on exhausted grass-land, quite 

 gravelly, and manured in the hill with barn-yard manure. 

 Some of it reached a height of eleven feet in nine weeks from 

 the time of seeding. 



The carrot-crop should be spoken of. Your committee will 

 remember the fine appearance of my carrots when they saw 

 them. Not long after that time a blight struck the tops and 

 blackened many of them, and later, in examining the roots, 

 I found them rotting fast, and that in places only the hole 

 where the carrot had grown and rotted entirely away could 

 be found. In ploughing the ground after the crop had been 

 removed, it was surprising also to see how many rotting roots 

 were necessarily left in the ground. I judge forty per cent, 

 to be a fair estimate of the loss. 



The onion-crop, which looked finely early in the season and 

 which had been greatly injured by the cut-worm, was sightly 

 injured by the rot shortly before being pulled and also some- 

 what after pulling. Where the cut-worm destroyed the onions, 

 ruta-bagas were planted. 



The one hundred and eighteen acres of wood, marsh, pas- 

 ture and waste land are capable of much improvement, which 



