24 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1877. 



miles over rough roads, and through the hot sun and dust of summer, 

 they become bruised, wilted, and lose much of their fresh and inviting 

 appearance, and as a matter of course cannot command so good a price 

 in market. If he locates within one or two miles of his market, his teams 

 will accomplish three or four times as much in hauling manure and in 

 carrying his produce to market as he would if he was six or eight miles 

 from it. Peter Henderson says in his " Gardening for Profit," "it is bet- 

 ter to pay $500 an acre for land lying one or two miles from market than 

 to have it given him at eight or ten miles away." 



A gentleman was once asked how he managed to raise such beautiful 

 flowers, replied:]" I manure them with brains.^'' So the market gardener 

 has need of a large quantity of this commodity in order to make the 

 business pay. He may not be able to write a nice essay, or speak elo- 

 quently, as many who have preceded me have done, and although he may 

 not be able to tell how many hundreds of dollars he has made from an 

 eighth of an acre of land, as some who have preceded me have done, 

 yet he may show by the superior quality and size of his vegetables that he 

 has not applied his talents in vain. 



When to apply the fertilizers, how, and in what quantities, and what 

 kinds, requires much discrimination and study, for on this hinges success 

 or failure many times. 



Some vegetables require fertilizers containing Ammonia and Nitrogen, 

 in order for them to grow successfully; while others require potash, and 

 others require phosphate of lime to develop them to perfection. Thirty 

 years ago we had but little choice in fertilizers; barnyard manure was 

 then the only source of supply and we must use that or none. But now 

 we have fertilizers for almost every crop we grow if we have need to 

 purchase them. I use barnyard manure for my principal supply, either 

 fermented or in its green state, according to the crop I apply it to; and 

 then use home-made superphosphate of lime to stimulate the crops to an 

 earlier development; the same as some of our Congressmen take whisky or 

 brandy to stimulate their brain when they are writing or speaking. And it 

 operates the same in the vegetable as with the man when we use too much; 

 it floors them, or in other words it kills the germ and the seed does not 

 vegetate; but to obviate this trouble I throw a little soil over the phos- 

 phate and plant on top of that when I drop it in the hill. 



Prof. Stockbridge, since he has been connected with our Agricultural 

 College, has instituted a series of experiments which, I think, will be of 

 incalculable benefit to the market gardeners of this State. He has demon- 

 strated by his experiments that chemical fertilizers may be prepared 

 which will be of equal benefit to the growing crops as animal excrements, 

 and that they are to be procured and applied much cheaper, thus giving 



