10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1880. 



duce a full crop ? This is a hard question to answer, and while I 

 do not expect many of you to agree with nie in my conclusions, 

 I shall try and answer as well as I can from my standpoint : 

 Tirst, a dressing of stable manure, the quantity must depend 

 upon the crop to be grown ; then apply the other one or two 

 elements that the crop to be grown requires, in larger quantities 

 than will be furnished by the stable manure. I can easily imagine 

 that some good conservative farmer will say — Give my land a good 

 dressing of barnyard manure and I will risk my corn, I don't 

 want any of your ammonia or potash. Well ! I have said that just 

 what he is willing to risk his corn on is a first rate thing to start 

 with. But then there are nine chances out of ten that the same 

 farmer has really given them the additional elements that I have 

 named. Let us see. He has composted the droppings from his hen 

 house, and put a quantity of that in the hill when he planted his 

 corn. "Well ! that is only to give the corn a good start. But he has 

 added ammonia in which hen droppings are particularly rich, the 

 very thing to give the corn a start, and he has put that in at the 

 right time, and the right place, and where it will do the mostgood. 

 Then the corn comes up, and at the first or second hoeing he goes 

 over the field again and puts a handful of wood ashes about each 

 hill, because he says that it does make it grow, and also keeps o& 

 the worms; and then he likes to see it look that dark green color, 

 which always denotes vigor and health. There is the other ele- 

 ment, potash ; and these are the very two elements that Indian 

 corn wants in larger proportions than are found in stable manure. 

 There may be instances where neither ammonia, bone or potash, 

 would do any particular good ; for instance, some of the river 

 bottom land in the west. And here let me again say that the rich- 

 ness of the land does not depend upon the amount of manure 

 applied entirely, but upon the amount of soluble plant food in 

 the soil. 



I have said that the value of manufactured fertilizers may 

 depend very largely upon how well they are dissolved. Ground 

 bone, although pure, will be so long in decomposing, unless 

 dissolved with acid or broken down with wood ashes, as to almost 

 discourage one in its use, while if it has been thoroughly dissolved 

 with sulphuric acid it is immediately available, and very valuable 

 for plant food. The substitutes for bone, which are used to a large 

 extent in the manufacture of fertilizers, such as the South Caro- 

 lina deposits and the Canada apatite, when thoroughly dissolved, 

 the phosphoric acid which they contain is just as good as it is 

 from bone itself ; but if not dissolved, and in its natural state, it 

 is worth no more than so much sand, while from pure bone un- 

 dissolved, plants would get the benefit of it after a few years. 



