68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



here, has no stones, no stumps, or. any thing in the way of 

 the harrow. 



Mr. Taft. You do all that before you put any manure 

 on? 



Capt. Moore. I do all that. Perhaps I go over the land 

 with a wheel harrow once, and then put on the manure. 

 That land is thoroughly pulverized, and the manure mixed 

 with it, before it is seeded. The work is well done. It is 

 very important it should be well done. 



Mr. Taft. The result is, you get two crops a year for five 

 years ? 



Capt. Moore. I do get, somehow or other, two crops a 

 year for five or six years ; but it takes heavy manuring. I 

 have ploughed in a good deal of manure ; but it is not econo- 

 my on my land. I would say, that if any gentleman is very 

 desirous of composting manure, if he will turn over a piece of 

 land, and will work that manure in two inches deep, where 

 it will have the influence of the sun and the influence of 

 moisture, I would like to have him tell me how he can com- 

 post it any better. I do not know any better way ; and 

 certainly it does not cost as much as it does to overhaul it 

 two or three times, and you have as much manure as you 

 have in any other way : there is none of it lost. I used to 

 think a great deal of manure was lost by spreading it on top 

 'of land in the spring, and harrowing it in ; but I have come 

 to the conclusion that there is but very little of it lost. Per- 

 haps when you go by a field, you can smell a disagreeable 

 smell, and you say the ammonia is all going off. Just think 

 of it a moment. A dead cat will scent the air over four 

 acres for two weeks, and you don't believe you have lost a 

 great deal of ammonia by that. I don't think there is so 

 much manure lost by spreading it on land as has generally 

 been supposed. 



But there is something that I wanted to talk about more 

 than I did about manure ; and that is the subject that has 

 been brought up here to-day by Mr. Grinnell. He referred 

 to the fact that our hill-towns are losing their population, 

 and the farms are being deserted. Mr. Slade said in his 

 paper to-day, that there are some farms run down and 

 deserted even in Bristol County ; and all who have spoken 

 on the subject have regretted that our young men leave the 



