54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



not come up to that. I do not know that it is a fact; but I 

 have been told that the Sturtevants over in Framingham have 

 failed in their crop of corn planted this year with the fertil- 

 izer. If that is a fact, every farmer in Massachusetts would 

 like to know it. I supposed it was settled that we could use 

 the fertilizer year after year, and the land would not deteri- 

 orate any more than it will if barn3^ard-manure is used in 

 sufficient quantities to produce a good crop. 



I was satisfied from the experience I had had, and from 

 the experiments which had been reported at this Board from 

 year to year by Professor Stockbridge and others, — and it 

 was tried last year on thousands of acres, — that it could be 

 used as well as barnyard-manure. Now, if it has proved a 

 failure this year, so that the general principle which I had 

 supposed to be established will not apply, we all want to 

 know it. If anybody else has compared barnyard-manure 

 with the special fertilizer this year, — whether the result 

 coincides with my experiments, or goes counter to them, — I 

 want to know it : every one wants to know it. What we 

 all want to get at is the facts. 



Mr. Paul of Dighton. I wish to say one word in regard 

 to the raising of onions. I will say that I have attended the 

 meetings of the Board now for six or seven years in succes- 

 sion ; and, if any thing has struck me as I have been looking 

 on, it has been that there is so much difference of opinion 

 among farmers on every subject which is brought up. I was 

 forcibly struck with that fact when the statement was made 

 in regard to the quantity of onion-seed sown on an acre. 

 I planted an onion-field this year ; and, in my ignorance, I 

 did not know that mice would destroy onion-seed. The seed 

 I planted on a part of that field was exposed, and the mice 

 got into them ; and I think not quite half as many came up 

 on that portion of the field as on the balance. On the whole 

 field I put four pounds and a half ; and on that portion of 

 the field where not more than one-half of the seed came up, 

 — that is, about two pounds to the acre, — there were more 

 bushels of onions than on the balance of the field, where there 

 were four pounds to the acre. 



I would suggest one thing here, although, perhaps, it is a 

 little out of place, in regard to those points where we differ 

 so much ; and it is the same thing that I heard Dr. Nichols 



