74 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and if such mixtures as they indicate to be most profitable 

 are made and used on larger tracts for our principal crops, 

 and modified from year to year as seems to be needed, they 

 will be found to accomplish all that is claimed for them. I 

 have yearly supplemented these small experiments with such 

 mixtures as they seemed to indicate to be most profitable for 

 difierent crops, used either alone or with stable manure, and 

 I have found the larger experiments to correspond with the 

 results indicated by these small plots. 



I have thus briefly reviewed some of the principal experi- 

 ments which I have conducted in this small way, and now we 

 naturally come to a consideration of the results. First, what 

 advantages have I derived from them ? Before I commenced 

 these experiments it appeared that my soil was deficient in 

 phosphates, from the fact that the stock grown on the farm 

 were inclined to be small, and all showed a great desire to 

 chew bones ; and that the small quantities of superphosphate 

 which had been used in the hill for hoed crops produced very 

 favorable results in a general way : but I had got the idea 

 that potash was not needed to any great extent. By these 

 experiments I find that the soil is deficient in both phosphates 

 and available potash, and that when these two constituents 

 of plant-food are liberally supplied in soluble form, with 

 possibly a little sulphate of magnesia, they seem to be all 

 that are needed for any crop I desire to grow ; that while 

 the addition of a small amount of any nitro2:eneous fertilizer 

 seems to stimulate an early and vigorous growth of foliage, 

 it seldom if ever increases the product enough to pay for its 

 cost, and that a large amount of nitrogeneous fertilizer is 

 often injurious. 



After trying for several years to bring up a run-down 

 farm, and make it support two families instead of one, de- 

 pending for fertilizers mainly on the manure made on the 

 farm, and trying to make a little manure and a good deal of 

 tillage produce abundant crops, I have found by these ex- 

 periments which constituents of plant-food are needed to 

 restore the fertility of the soil I cultivate, and that while to 

 supply those elements by the manure made on the farm, or 

 the purchase of either stable manure or the so-called com- 

 plete manures in the market, was too expensive a process, 



