110 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Dr. Nichols. Small coast shells, that have been mechanically 

 incorporated with them. 



Mr. Harlow of Shrewsbury. I have been exceedingly inter- 

 ested in this lecture and in this discussion. I have taken con- 

 siderable pains to come to this meeting, thinking I should be 

 paid by what I should hear, and I believe I have been. The 

 subject which I particularly desired to hear discussed was the 

 one treated this morning, — the food of plants, particularly the 

 grass plants. I have followed farming for a few years, and I 

 cannot make it pay, unless I have the grass crop. What I wish 

 to ascertain is, whether any article can be purchased that we 

 can sow broadcast upon our pastures and our mowing lands, 

 and have more dollars come back than we lay out. I know we 

 can apply ashes and plaster, but I wish something that will pro- 

 duce a greater effect. 



I have tried some experiments in sowing ashes and bones. 

 Coal ashes have been spoken of. Four years ago, I took quite a 

 large quantity of coal ashes and sowed them upon a piece ten 

 rods square. I have watched that piece closely ever since, and 

 not an extra spear of grass has grown upon it. I also purchased 

 a quantity of bone, as pure as any that could be found, ground 

 very fine, and in seeding down a piece of land, I sowed it to 

 barley, and applied the bone, five hundred pounds to a half 

 acre, leaving strips where I put none. I don't think there was 

 a spear of grass extra grew upon that half acre. Another ex- 

 periment that I tried was this. I had a piece of pasture land of 

 fifteen acres, that has been fed for a hundred years, I presume, 

 and I do not know but longer. On four acres of that piece, I 

 sowed about a hundred bushels of ashes, and there has more 

 feed grown upon those four acres than upon all the rest of the 

 fifteen. Unleached ashes is the only thing I have ever applied 

 that has paid me what it cost. I hoped, in coming here, that I 

 should receive information where to go to purchase an article 

 that it would pay to sow upon my pasture lands and mowings. 



Mr. Buffinton. A year ago last August, I was drawing some 

 gas lime from the gas works, and I saw Dr. Durfee's team draw- 

 ing away oyster-shell lime. I took it for granted it was going 

 on to his land, and I thought if it was good for the doctor, it 

 would be good for me, and I would draw some of it on to my 

 land. I used it in the same way that I should plaster, and I am 



