148 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



thought Jethro Tnll, who believed that deep and thorough tilling 

 of the soil would supersede the necessity of manure, was nearer 

 the truth than some of our modern professors with their chemical 

 fertilizers. We have been told that only four persons failed out of 

 a hundred who used the Stockbridge fertilizers last season, but 

 those who did not fail have not told us what good, deep, thorough 

 tillage would do on the same soil without fertilizers. The pub- 

 lished experiments were, too many of them, ex parte. 



Leander Wetherell read from an address by Prof. Stockbridge, 

 as given in the " Report of the Secretar3'' of the Massachusetts 

 Board of Agriculture for 1875-6," p. 23, and said that he could not 

 see in this anything short of rendering barnyard manure nearly 

 valueless. Prof. Stockbridge only uses three elements for all 

 crops, like the doctor who prescribed calomel and bleeding for all 

 his. patients. Mr. Wetherell also quoted from the " Scientific 

 Farmer " for December, an account of the application of the Stock- 

 bridge formula to a crop of gi'ass which produced 1,950 pounds per 

 acre more than the natural jield of the land. He had some land 

 just in condition to use this formula, and he intended to give it a 

 trial, though he had not much faith in it. Who can tell, when the 

 increase in the crop is attributed to the three ingredients named 

 in the formula, that it was not due to the sulphate of lime in the 

 superphosphate? He could tell a story of a much greater in- 

 crease in a crop of clover, than that in the " Scientific Farmer." 

 He knew a piece of land which had been ploughed for seventy 

 years, and was then sowed to clover, with gypsum, and produced 

 three tons of cured clover to the acre, while a corner left without 

 the gypsum produced only at the rate of one ton to the acre. It 

 is recommended in using the Stockbridge formulas to leave three 

 rows without the fertilizers, for comparison, but when the roots 

 are running all through the ground, how can we know that they 

 do not feed on the fertilizers? There is a looseness about these 

 experiments that brings them within the domain of doubt. Wheif 

 you have applied the fertilizers, are you sure that the plants 

 will take up every particle ? 



The President announced that this would close the series of 

 meetings for discussion this season. 



