64 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



brought to bear upon us ; and then we must exercise our own 

 judgment as to what is best for us to use for an absorbent, 

 and what is the best way to use it. Some say, " Put your 

 manure upon the top, and keep it as near the top as possi- 

 ble." Now, in my experience, I have raised the best pota- 

 toes I ever raised by putting coarse stable manure on top, 

 turning it over, and planting my potatoes on top of it. By 

 the decomposition of the manure, it is brought into a state 

 fit for the use of the tubers. They are all the time after 

 something that will feed the plant. A plant wants food just 

 as much as an animal. 



Now, as to allowing weeds to grow on our farms : we might 

 as well turn our cows into a pasture, and then turn in our 

 sheep also. What the sheep are taking away, the cows 

 cannot have. What the weeds are taking up of the fertiliz- 

 ing elements that are in the soil ought to go to promote the 

 growth of the plant. If the weeds take it, the plant cannot 

 have it, any more than the cows can have what the sheep 

 take. 



Capt. Moore (of Concord). I should not disagree with 

 my friend Hubbard in regard to some things that he has 

 said ; still I think we cannot all agree with him when he 

 says that we cannot agree upon any thing. In regard to 

 putting stuff into the barn-cellar, I think we can all agree 

 upon one thing about that, and that is this, not to put a 

 shovelful more of absorbents in the barn-cellar than is suffi- 

 cient to soak up the moisture. There is the point exactly ; 

 not to cart your whole farm into the cellar for the sake of 

 carting it out again. That I think we can all agree upon. 



Then, if you are going to put an absorbent into the barn- 

 cellar, what will you put there ? One gentleman says sand ; 

 another says loam ; another says clay. Now, what are the 

 facts in regard to those materials ? Sand is small particles 

 of stone, and will absorb but very little for its bulk. Loam 

 dried or clay dried will absorb four or five times as much as 

 the same bulk of sand. Now, I think it is a question, if 

 you really want to use sand on your low land or your clay 

 soil, whether you should cart, at great expense, a large 

 quantity of sand into your cellar for the purpose of carting 

 it out, when you can put a more manurial material there in 

 some easier way. It does seem so to me. 



