TOP-DRESSING GRASSLAND. 65 



Now in regard to top-dressing. I have done a great deal 

 of that. I have put hundreds of loads of stuff into my 

 cellar for the sake of composting it. When I was younger 

 than I am now, I thought every load I carried out was a 

 load of manure. But I would not put in a shovelful more 

 than enough to absorb the liquid part of the manure. You 

 may put in two loads of sand to one of manure ; but you 

 will not get three loads of manure when you draw it out. I 

 have no doubt that if your barn-cellar is cemented, and you 

 have a way of catching the liquid manure in a tank, and 

 some cheap way of distributing it on the land, it would be 

 cheaper than putting absorbents into your barn-cellar. I 

 don't think I should adopt Mr. Whitaker's plan of lugging 

 it out in an old iron kettle. 



Mr. Whitaker. Allow me to state that I was trying 

 that for an experiment. I did not want to bivy a large 

 wheelbarrow to try an experiment when I could try it in a 

 way that did not cost three cents. If I was going to use my 

 liquid manure in that way, I would get a barrel, put a plug 

 in at the bottom, put that barrel on wheels, pump the barrel 

 full, then take it out to the field, pull out the plug behind, 

 and let it sprinkle on the land. 



Capt. Moore. In regard to top-dressing land, I am not 

 going to say here that it is not desirable to top-dress land. 

 I have done a great deal of it, and may do some of it yet ; 

 but in my own case I am satisfied, although I have hauled 

 hundreds of loads of compost on to mowing, that it is not for 

 my interest to do it now. Why ? Because I have adopted 

 a plan in which I mean to plough my land once in five or 

 six years. Now, don't you imagine that I do not grow good 

 grass. There are gentlemen here who can tell you whether 

 I grow grass on my farm or not. Don't you imagine, any of 

 you, that you grow a great many more tons to the acre than 

 I do ; because if you do, if you come to my place, you will 

 have occasion to change your opinion. I don't stand up here 

 to brag about it ; but it is well understood in Middlesex 

 County that I raise pretty good crops of grass on my farm. 



It don't get manured by merely driving a cart over it : it 

 is manured with the very best manure sufficient to carry two 

 crops a year for about five years, if not six, — big crops 

 too. The land that I seeded the very week before the meet- 



