no BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



is something in the chemical action of dung, which perhaps 

 scientific men do not get at, which is a permanent benefit to 

 the land ; on the contrary, chemical fertilizers may extract 

 something from the soil whicli the dung does not, and, using 

 the two in connection, you may get a greater advantage from 

 both than by following one system alone. 



There is another thing. There are many farmers who be- 

 lieve it to be a fact — I have believed it to be a fact — that 

 where you buy grain and feed it out to your stock, you 

 arc increasing the value of your farm; in other words, you 

 are adding to the value of the manure which you apply to 

 your land. Well, sir, the milk business has been conducted 

 on the Harlem railroad, probably for the last twenty-five 

 years, I do not know how much longer, and it has been the 

 custom of the majority of farmers on that road to buy their 

 grain. Now, if it was the fact that buying grain and feeding 

 it to their stock, and putting the manure on their land in- 

 creased the fertility of their farms, it would be evident by this 

 time ; but the actual fact is, that they do not get as large 

 crops to-day as they did before they went into the milk busi- 

 ness. How do you account for that ? The idea that it is 

 policy to buy meal and grain for the purpose of enricliing the 

 farm, that is, that the value of the manure is made greater by 

 feeding grain to the stock, seems to be altogether wrong. The 

 whole subject is a complicated one, and it is only by combin- 

 ing these things and finding out how they operate on his own 

 land that a man can get at the whole gist of the matter. 

 That is my opinion. 



Mr. Webb. This nitrogen question was brought up some 

 time ago in one of our agricultural papers, and it was brought 

 forward very promptly in these statistics which liave been re- 

 ferred to, and I wondered from whom the suggestion came, 

 that we did not want a double dose of nitrogen. Nobody 

 had suggested it that I had ever heard of, or that such a thing 

 was required, or that such a thing was necessary in success- 

 ful farming ; but since the gentleman has been speaking, it 

 has occurred to me that the first time I wanted to buy blood 

 for the purpose of mixing my own fertilizer, I went to a 



