FERTILIZATION. 157 



soil afterwards. My land holds its own, continues to im- 

 prove, and bore better crops, with the dry weather and heat 

 of the past year, than the year before. 



Mr. CusHMAN. The gentleman did not quite get my 

 meaning in the remark I made. I said that if you got the 

 quantity of nitrogen and these other substances, it made no 

 difference in what form they came, or by what name they 

 were called. In regard to ashes, some gentlemen might 

 consider that I overestimate them. I consider them worth 

 more than perhaps twice the value of the potash which they 

 contain for the purpose to which I apply them, to dissolve 

 bone. I always mix hard-wood ashes with ground bone, the 

 finest ground bone I can find in the market, which I consider 

 cheaper than any of the coarser grades ; I want something 

 to break it down, to' make it available. I take hard-wood 

 ashes and this ground bone, and mix them, for some crops, 

 in equal parts, and wet them, and in about fifteen or twenty 

 days I find the bone dissolved. The hard-wood ashes are 

 just what I want for that purpose, and I can aflbrd to pay 

 the price that I am paying and use them in that way. 



Question. Do you use any leached ashes ? 



Mr". CusHMAN. I have not, lately, from the very fact that 

 I felt that I had been imposed upon. In buying leached 

 ashes, I could not avoid a great many coal ashes and ashes 

 of inferior quality, and if I cannot get hard-wood ashes, I 

 take muriate of potash. 



Evening Session. 



The meeting re-assembled at seven and a half o'clock, 

 Hon. James S. Grinnell in the Chair. 



The Chairman. Most of you know that it is the custom 

 of the Board of Agriculture, at their country meeting, to 

 arrange that the entertainment of the evening shall be some- 

 thing not entirely of an agricultural character, but some- 

 thing more popular, that shall interest and instruct a general 

 audience. The committee have invited for that purpose, 

 to-night, one whose name extends far beyond the limits of 

 the United .States, and whose teachings are more generally 



