PLANT-NUTRITION. 17 



Now, gentlemen, I have iutroducecl to you Essex County, 

 as I think, fairly. I welcome you within her borders, and 

 trust and believe, and doubt not, that when you separate, you 

 will leave behind some new law, some new fact, or some new 

 statement, which the Essex County farmers, seizing, will use 

 and pass on to still greater prosperity. 



The meeting then adjourned to two o'clock in the afternoon. 



Afteenoon Session. 



The meeting was called to order at two o'clock by Dr. 

 LoRixG, who introduced, as the first speaker, Professor 

 Stockbridge of the Agricultural College. 



EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING PLANTS. 



BY HON. LEVI STOCKBRIDGE. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board of Agricult- 

 ure^ — Farmers of 3Iassachusetts : — It will be recollected by 

 the gentlemen of the Board that, at your last public or coun- 

 try meeting, which was held in Westfield, I had the honor of 

 speaking to you upon the subject of feeding plants, and of 

 giving some account of a series of experiments which had 

 been tried at the Agricultural College in this direction. 

 Speaking upon the same subject to-day, little remains for me 

 to say, except to continue the narrative of those experiments 

 at the College, giving the results of 1875, and drawing there- 

 from some rules for practice. 



This subject of plant-nutrition is one which has attracted 

 the attention of the scientific men both of Europe and Am- 

 erica, has led to investigation and to experiment, and, as a 

 matter of pure scientific investigation, is one of' the very 

 highest interest. But to the practical man, to the farmer, to 

 him whose business it is to make plants as a means of liveli- 

 hood, to him whose success or failure depends upon under- 

 standing the principles of plant-nutrition and upon being able 

 successfully to apply them, the question is one of more than 

 3 



