150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. ^ 



that manure to this day. I can keep up my land in that 

 way, and I do not know of any other way to keep it up. 



Mr. E. P. Spaulding. I rise here as the oldest member, 

 probably, of the Middlesex North. I want to congratulate 

 the State Board upon the success of the meeting we have had 

 here. I believe they have enjoyed it. Probably they will 

 go home and tell their children, and let their children tell 

 the next generation, what has been done here in Lowell. I 

 will say to the members of the Middlesex North, — my 

 children, I call them, in some measure, — I hope they have 

 done as the old man told his boy when he went to a rais- 

 ing. They had a good supper after the raising, and he 

 says, " John, take large mouthfuls ; we don't have any such 

 victuals at home."' I hope my children of the INliddlesex 

 North have taken large mouthfuls mentally. I want to 

 know if there are not brains enough in the State, if there 

 are not in the IMiddlesex North, to write that little essay 

 that I have offered a premium for. I offered it last year, 

 but it was not put in the regular list of premiums. 



Mr. ^Stewart of Dracut. Facts without fisfures lose half 

 their value. I wish to take exception to one remark of the 

 essayist this afternoon in regard to the value of muck, 

 although it was rather an inference than a statement. As I 

 understood him, the inference would be, from what he said, 

 that muck is of no value. I think it is of great value as an 

 absorbent, and that is its greatest value, — muck from your 

 peat meadows, and muck from anywhere else, as long as 

 there is humus about it. We know that a carcass buried 

 one foot deep in dry muck will give off no smell ; it there- 

 fore holds all the ammonia, which is the most expensive 

 ingredient of these commercial fertilizers. 



The Chairman. There is no question of the value of 

 muck as an absorbent, when convenient to the barnyard, 

 and the value of muck as a fertilizer has been settled by the 

 Board. I beg that that may not be made a matter of discus- 

 sion at this time.' 



Mr. Stewart. The main point I wished to make was 

 this : Commercial fertilizers have their place, after every 

 load of manure from your barn cellars has been used. That 



