58 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



will cease to yield sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre. 

 There are fields in the northern part of Connecticut where 

 the natural supply of nitrogen is only equivalent to nine or 

 ten bushels of rye every other year ; to get larger crops out 

 of those fields, you would have to add nitrogen. 



One of the grand truths which is thoroughly enforced by 

 Mr. Lawes' experiments is that soils differ, to a degree that 

 cannot be inferred from external signs, and any conclusion as 

 to what fertilizer is best for this or that crop, is to be judged 

 of for each case by itself, and depends upon the lack or sup- 

 ply of the totality of plant food in the soil, and the cooperation 

 or want of cooperation of all of the factors which work to- 

 gether for the production of a crop. We have learned from 

 Mr. Lawes' experiments many valuable facts which could not 

 be brought to light in any other way, and the longer these 

 experiments go on, the more information we shall get from 

 them. Probably Mr. Lawes has never got his money back from 

 these experiments. But the farmers of England, and of the 

 world will profit immensely by the investments which Mr. 

 Lawes has put into his investigations. The State of Connec- 

 ticut can now begin a similar work, which in time will be 

 exceedingly profitable, and which will at once justify the out- 

 lay, "VVe can get results in the matter of stock-feeding within 

 five years from a single experiment station devoted to that 

 purpose, which will help every farmer in the state, who is in 

 telligent enough to master those results, and will take pains 

 to apply them in his practice. 



The statements which come to us from Germany, witli re- 

 gard to what is necessary to feed a thousand pounds live 

 weight of this or that animal, under different circumstances, 

 are the results of a large number of practical trials made by 

 men skilled both in the handling of live stock, and in the 

 scientific investigation of whatever influences go to assist or 

 to hinder the use and economy of their food. The rcsulte are 

 statistical in their nature, and they apply, as all statistics do, 

 with more or less variation. 



The true scientific character of those investigations was 

 shown us last winter through the New Jersey station, which 



