92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and before other bodies of husbandmen, I have presented some 

 of the results of these experiments, and as they have been pub- 

 lished and read extensively, I do not feel that it is necessary to 

 allude to them any further than to say, that each year, or 

 each successive crop upon my farm, affords additional proof 

 that properly prepared chemical or manufactured fertilizers 

 can be used economically, and with a certainty of favorable 

 results upon our fields. I have raised three tons of hay and 

 three hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre, the past season, 

 upon fields to which not a pound of animal manures had ever 

 been applied. My corn-field gave me, this year, a little more 

 than one hundred bushels of shelled corn to the acre, but this 

 received a moderate dressing of cow dung, with a mixture of 

 bone and ashes applied to the hills. The hay crop upon the 

 farm, the present year, which has been characterized as one of 

 the driest and most unfavorable ever experienced, was rising 

 sixty tons, — an increase over the preceding year of more than 

 ten tons. I give these brief statements to show that the exper- 

 imental labors .commenced nine years ago, continue to afford 

 gratifying evidences of success, and are well calculated to settle 

 some important controverted points in husbandry. 



And now let me briefly consider the inquiry of the farmer, 

 who, after exhausting all his supplies of barnyard dung, offal, 

 house waste, &c, asks how and where he can obtain a further 

 supply of plant-food. Shall he be sent into the market to pur- 

 chase the commercial fertilizers of which the market is full ? 

 There are reasons for hesitating to do this. 



I have said so much in public addresses and through the jour- 

 nals upon commercial fertilizers, that I ought not to dwell upon 

 the subject here. But I must be permitted to say that the per- 

 sistent exposure of frauds, and the explanations of the true 

 nature of fertilizing compounds, has had the effect to improve 

 them, — some in an important degree ; still, they are generally 

 not what they should be, regard being had to quality and price. 



During the past four months we have devoted much time, in 

 the analytical department of the laboratory in my charge, to 

 the careful qualitative and quantitative analysis of the different 

 brands of superphosphates and fertilizing mixtures found in the 

 market. It is the intention to continue these researches, until 

 all the products of the prominent manufacturers have been sub- 



