FIELD AND GARDEN CROPS. 83 



That we can regard our •well-directed efforts in soil-culture 

 as a merited reward may be inferred from the fact, that from 

 forty-five to fifty bushels of sound, plump wheat, can be 

 raised from one acre of land (as was the case with Mr, Brown 

 of Sunderland and Mr. Childs of Deerfield) at an immediate 

 expense of not more than fifty cents per bushel. This being 

 so, we ask what better inducement can be offered to encour- 

 age all farmers to engage in the raising of this noble grain ? 

 Is it not better than it is to depend upon the West or Cali- 

 fornia for the materials for our bread ? Though their suc- 

 cess was most marked, we have no doubt that others would 

 approximate very near to them, should they attend to the 

 underlying conditions. 



So, too, in regard to corn, when we find that from fifty to 

 one hundred and more bushels of corn can be raised from 

 one acre, as was the case with Mr. E. C. Parker of South 

 Deerfield, Mr. D. O. Fisk of Shelburne (on his Greenfield 

 farm), Messrs. E. H. Fisk, I. W. Barnard &. Son, and G. P. 

 Carpenter of Shelburne. Mr. E. C. Parker, on a light, sandy 

 pasture, — from an expenditure of twelve dollars for manure, 

 fish-scraps, and potash, sowed broadcast, — obtained fifty 

 bushels of sound corn per acre ; D. O. Fisk, on rather a firmer 

 sandy soil, — with a compost of meadow-muck, leached ashes, 

 and superphosphate, at a cost of fourteen dollars per acre, 

 sowed broadcast, with two hundred pounds of phosphate put 

 in the hill, — harvested some sixty-five bushels of sound corn 

 to the acre ; while the others we have named, on good arable 

 land, at an expenditure of from thirty to forty dollars for 

 stable-manure and superphosphate, secured a hundred and 

 more bushels of corn per acre. 



The experiments of Messrs. Parker and Fisk, if we assume 

 that the value of the fodder will pay the cost of culture (and 

 the same may be said of the others), clearly shows that corn 

 can be raised here in Franklin County very much cheaper 

 than it can be transported from the prairies of the West. 

 And what is of greater interest is the fact, that, bushel for 

 bushel, our native grain is of greater nutritive value than 

 that which grows in the West. This has been shown by 

 chemical analysis as well as by practical experiment. Dr. 

 J. R. Nichols states in the December number of " The Boston 

 Journal of Chemistry " that a bushel of ears of our domestic 



