FERTILIZATION. 151 



they are of use I know from experiment. In planting corn 

 fodder, I used twenty cents' worth of Stockbridge fodder- 

 crop fertilizer per row, and left one row in the middle of the 

 field without any of the fertilizer. I got one hundred and 

 twelve pounds, without the manure ; I got three hundred 

 and twenty-four pounds with the manure, — the second row 

 from the one that had none. If we can get two hundred 

 and twelve pounds of corn fodder for twenty cents, I think 

 that it pays us, especially if every atom of our manure has 

 been expended and we could not have got that if we had not 

 used it. 



]Mr. King. I shall detain "you but a few moments, but 

 having had considerable experience in the use of fertilizers, 

 and coming from Essex County, the neighborhood of my 

 friend, Mr. Ware, who spoke to you, I rise to corroborate 

 many of his remarks. A few years ago I was conservative ; 

 I did not believe in commercial fertilizers ; I thought that it 

 "Would be a waste of money to buy them. But when Prof. 

 Stockbridge came out with his, and they were spoken of in 

 such high terms, knowing him as I did, I ventured to try my 

 first experiment upon an acre of corn. The year previous 

 the land was planted with cabbages, and, being some dis- 

 tance from my house, it was rather difficult to haul the 

 manure, and I only put four loads on that acre of land. The 

 next year I planted in rows, both ways, thirty-three hundred 

 hills of yellow corn, and I raised from that acre ninety 

 bushels of shelled corn. It was the heaviest crop of corn 

 that has been raised in my neighborhood in my rememr 

 brance. I allowed eighty pounds from the ear to make a 

 bushel. 



This year I took one barrel of the Stockbridge fertilizer 

 and used it for nine hundred cabbage plants. I took the 

 same number of hills on the other side of the piece and ap- 

 plied stable manure at the rate of seven cords to the acre, 

 and after those cabbages had grown, a man must have been 

 blind, if he could not see the difference in favor of the fer- 

 tilizer, and it proved so up to the end. I claim that we can- 

 not keep up with the age in farming unless we use, to a cer- 

 tain extent, these commercial fertilizers. 



I do not believe in top-dressing grass land ; if we put 



