56 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ing the bono to both the barley and grass, but believe it to have 

 been, as above, on 28th of May. 



On Potatoes. 

 Twenty-five bushels of bone meal were applied to the acre on 

 the 6th of June, being one-half a pint to the hill. I ought to 

 say that in the case of both corn and potatoes the soil was 

 removed from the plant with the hoe, the bone then applied and 

 covered. The potatoes were dug in my absence, and not 

 weighed but measured — fifteen hills ivith bone yielding three- 

 fourths of a peck more than the adjoining row without. This 

 is equal to forty bushels per acre — the twenty-five bushels of 

 bone costing, however, $57. 



On Onions. 

 Flour of bone was used at the rate of thirty-nine bushels per 

 acre, hoed in by the side of the row just as the onions were 

 breaking ground. These, also, were harvested in my absence, 

 but as no difference ivas perceptible, they were neither measured 

 nor weighed. 



On Carrots. 



Bone applied, thirty-nine bushels to the acre, and in the same 

 manner as to the onions. The yield was 29* tons per acre with 

 bone, and 23 1- tons without bone. Difference, 6^ tons. At 

 $10 per ton, the produce in the first case, per acre, would be 

 $295 ; without bone, $232. Cost of 39 bushels of the bone, 

 $88.92 ; thus the 6 T 3 ^ tons excess, with bone, cost this sum, 

 $88.92. 



An answer to all this may be urged, viz., that a part, perhaps 

 a larger part, of the strength of the bone will be available next 

 year, and perhaps for a still greater length of time. I hope it 

 will prove so ; but where I used it last year, I am unable to 

 perceive any manifest traces of it. 



On the whole, the results, so far as my experience goes at 

 present, are as astounding as they are painful and unaccountable. 

 Last year I was led to think and say the bone had done nobly 

 for onions, but I now strongly suspect I was deceived, and 

 attributed an apparent result to a wrong cause. 



Were this the time and place for argument, I should urge the 

 importance of an analysis of the soil, as well as of the stimulant 



