114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



" is in the application of it," and this is the application : that 

 every one must study his own farm, and every single rod of it. 

 And that is the reason I believe in agriculture as a thing for 

 men who have brains, and who are going to cultivate their 

 brains, because the time will never come when a man can go on 

 a farm, and run it as a locomotive can run on the track. He 

 must study it every moment of the time, from spring to fall, and 

 every new farm he gets, he must study. A doctor who is called 

 to visit a patient, not only studies the general principles of medi- 

 cine, and seeks to apply them to that individual case, but he 

 studies the patient, and tries to ascertain his characteristics, and 

 in order to get hold of them, he endeavors to find what were the 

 characteristics of his family back of him, and he brings them all 

 to bear upon the particular case. If he does not do that, he is 

 no physician. And so it is with the farmer. Every single farm 

 must be studied by every man who would cultivate it to the 

 best advantage, and that will continue just as long as this world 

 stands ; and I am glad of it. 



Mr. Sturtevant, of Pramingham. I have tried plaster with 

 great success on one piece of land, and I have tried it on another 

 piece with no success. I can give an explanation of that which 

 is satisfactory to myself. The land which did not show any 

 result had a supply and required no more ; the other piece 

 required it for plant-food, and there I saw a result. 



Mr. Hyde. If I may be pardoned a word, I will say, in rela- 

 tion to this matter of coal ashes, that some few years ago, when 

 engaged, in the nursery business, as well as farming, to some 

 extent, it occurred to me that a great deal of coal ashes were 

 going to waste, and that they contained some plant-food. I 

 accordingly carted them, year after year, in considerable quan- 

 tities. You may ask why I carted them year after year, when I 

 tell you what result followed. The first year, the ashes were 

 from red-ash coal. I did not think so much of it at the time, but 

 I am satisfied there was a good deal of wood used in kindling the 

 fires. I know that some of the fires in the houses where that 

 coal was used were kindled daily. I afterwards carted the ashes 

 from a village near us, where white-ash coal was used in the 

 house furnaces, that are run for a month or two months together, 

 or all winter, as I run mine, so that kindlings are used but 

 two or three times during the winter, and very little wood ashes 



