FARM EXPERIMENTS AT LAKESIDE. 109 



taken into account. The difficulty and cost of plac- 

 ing bulky manure upon swampy lands and high ele- 

 vations must not be overlooked, and the expense of 

 handling or distributing it after it is deposited is 

 considerable. Nearly one third of my tillage lands 

 are so low that they cannot be entered upon by any 

 vehicle drawn by oxen or horses, and consequently 

 it is extremely difficult or well-nigh impossible to 

 distribute heavy manures upon these fields. With 

 the concentrated fertilizers employed, the men have 

 been able to carry in a farm basket an amount of 

 plant nutriment equal in value to that found in 

 a cartload of animal excrement. 



Upon the reclaimed meadows no farm dung has 

 been used, excepting on a small patch for the pur- 

 pose of experiment, and I have secured large crops 

 of redtop and timothy during the past five years. 

 The method of treatment has been varied, with the 

 view of ascertaining the best way of bringing them 

 into condition to produce upland grasses. I have 

 dressed certain parcels with the farm-made super- 

 phosphate, with a mixture of bone and ashes, with 

 guano, fish pomace, combinations .of salt and lime, 

 and with sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of soda. 

 It must be remembered that my low lands are pure 

 peat bogs, of such a nature that if the water was 

 withdrawn, and the deposits allowed to become dry, 

 fire would consume the whole to ashes. The ele- 



