48 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



and a ready market at the door for as much milk as I care to 

 make. These are conditions which few farmers have ; but, 

 under these conditions, I have no need for chemicals. If Mr. 

 Appleton had been able to get stable-manure for four dollars 

 instead of ten dollars, the cost of manure and fertilizer would 

 have been about equal, and the manure-crop would have 

 been twenty-two bushels and a quarter of ears more than the 

 fertilizer crop. 



Admitting that the Darling Fertilizer would have done as 

 much better for Mr. Appleton as it did for Mr. "Ware, the 

 manure-crop would still have been ahead. The fertilizer 

 question is a very important one to the market-gardener who 

 has to buy all his manure ; and experiments which determine 

 the relative value of chemicals to stable-manure are very 

 valuable to all who purchase manure. There is a valuable 

 lesson to onion-growers in Mr. Daniel Carlton's plan of using 

 barn-manure one year, and Cumberland superphosphate the 

 next, on the same land, and thereby growing premium onions 

 every year. 



It is safe to add, that one reason why farmers need so much 

 is because they have let so much run to waste. My advice 

 to all is, to save all before buying any. 



Ansel W. Putnam, /or the Committee. 



[Statement of Benjamin P. Ware.] 



The one acre of land upon which the following experiment 

 was tried was ploughed up four years ago, having been in 

 grass for eight or nine years before, and was quite run out. 

 It has a gravelly subsoil, is level, and is what would gen- 

 erally be considered good corn-land. The first year after 

 breaking up, it was manured with seven cords of good com- 

 post manure per acre, and planted with squashes. The 

 second year it was manured as above, and planted with pota- 

 toes. The third year it was manured with sufficient of the 

 Stockbridge Corn Fertilizer, purchased of W. H. Bowker 

 & Co., to produce, according to his formula, seventy-five 

 bushels of corn per acre over and above the natural 3'ield of 

 the land without any fertilizer, which I considered would 

 be forty bushels per acre ; and the product was eighty-one 

 bushels of very sound shelled corn. 



