70 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



this seed on land of a fair agricultural condition, the fertilizer will 

 not cause the thirt}' bushel variety to as readily respond as it will 

 the sixty bushel variety. In other words, it is as easy to grow the 

 sixty bushels in one case as the thirty bushels in the other ; and 

 hence, unless this difference of productive capacity' be considered, 

 we cannot fairly measure the apparent effect of the plant food 

 applied to the soil. In land of sufficient fertility to mature a thirty 

 bushel crop with either seed, an application sufficient to cause the 

 better variety to yield sixty bushels, will probably not cause the 

 thirty bushel variet}' to harvest over forty bushels. He repeated, 

 however, that in order to test these differences even, the trial must 

 be on a sufficienth- large scale, and, preferabl}-, continued over a 

 series of years. 



The speaker considered Southern j^ew Hampshire and Vermont, 

 with Massachusetts and Connecticut, the most profitable farming 

 region in America. With fair land and most excellent markets, 

 this locality offered rewards for the application of inteUigent thought 

 to the farmer. As soon as the New England farmer learns that the 

 amount of his cultivated land is not limited by his dung-heap, but 

 b}' his capital, then shall we find agriculture the most desirable of 

 occupations. New England cultivates too little land to a farm, for 

 profit. The complete fertilizer allows us to extend our operations 

 within the lines of profit to the full capacit}' of the farm. The duty 

 of the farmer is to have faith in the teachings of science, and then 

 to consider whether the teaching meets his case, and whether he 

 can afford to practise it. Fertilizers will benellt any crop aud an}- of 

 our land. The farmer is to consider the cost to him of this beuelit, 

 and whether he can attbrd to pay for it. 



H. Weld Fuller hud Ijeen brought up to believe that barnyard 

 manures have a duration vastly longer than that of chemicals ; the 

 German chemists sa}' its effects ai'e felt for eighteen j'ears. The 

 last speaker would use, on all soils, however various, one single 

 specific. No matter how o-yermuch of any ingredient may be in the 

 soil, it must still have as much more of the same added as the in- 

 tended crop will contain. 



Now, why should a man appl}^ phosphates to his land when there 

 is alread}' in the soil more than enough for a hundred years to come ? 

 An excess of any salt when added to a soil may do mischief. This 

 will often be shown bj' a deposit of a fine powder" on the leaves of 

 plants, this being an excess which the plant cannot assimilate. 



