366 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



amplify what has been said before. Corn with rare exceptions 

 gets on fairly well with little or no nitrogen iia manures, but gen- 

 erally responds to phosphoric acid and often to potash. 



Potatoes have seldom failed in a favorable season to respond 

 profitably to nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, each and all. 

 The data for other crops are still too meager to permit reliable 

 generalizations. 



IN CONCLUSION. 



The truth I wish especially to enforce in this writing, and whicli 

 I repeat once more because it is so important, is this. 



We want more light. "We want more reason in farming. We 

 want more men to study, to read, to think, to experiment, to get 

 facts for themselves, for their neighbors, and for the community 

 at large, and to give still greater strength to the movement that 

 so happily characterizes our time, the agricultural revival that is 

 so rationally and rapidly pervading the land. 



The strongest objection I have known to be urged against the 

 experiments I have advocated in these volumes the past five years, 

 is that farmers generally cannot, or at any rate will not, make 

 them. Very true. Twenty years ago, hardly a man in the state 

 would have thought of such an undertaking. But twenty years 

 ago, an Experiment Station in Connecticut was impossible. Ten 

 years ago matters were improved. Eight years ago the actual 

 movement began which resulted in the Station. Ten years hence, 

 there is every reason to believe it will be on a far better footing 

 than it is now. 



To-day, we have a few men like Mr. Bartholomew, Mr. Fair- 

 child, Mr. Newton, and others, whose good work, it has been my 

 privilege and pleasure — and I esteem it a privilege as it is a pleasure 

 — to describe. Ten years hence, I hope there will be many, that 

 we shall have not half a dozen or a dozen in a state, but as many 

 and more in each county, and all doing better work, because work- 

 ing in the light of larger experience. 



What Mr. Fairchild, and Mr. Bartholomew, and Mr. Newton, 

 and others are doing, still other Connecticut farmers can do, and 

 that is what we want done. As an enthusiastic supporter of agri- 

 cultural investigation of my acquaintance says, " Such men are 

 lighthouses." They are needed everywhere. 



But such men would do more, and a great deal of unlocked for 

 talent would be brought out, if a little more substantial encourage- 



