42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



about two years, and find it not only more economical than 

 straw for bedding, but its absorbing qualities make it of 

 great value for fertilizing purposes. We can buy ordinary 

 straw manure in our vicinity for one dollar per team load ; 

 but we are buying all we can get from stables where the 

 moss is used at two dollars per team load, believing it to be 

 of twice the value of ordinary straw manure. It is claimed 

 that the source of supply of the peat moss in Europe is 

 almost inexhaustible, and it is now offered by three or four 

 firms in New York, at prices ranging from twelve to four- 

 teen dollars per ton, and it is hoped competition will bring 

 it yet still lower. It is now used exclusively as bedding 

 by some of our largest horse-car stables and express com- 

 panies in New York and vicinity ; and one of our largest 

 livery stable men in Jersey City, who has been using it for 

 two years, says he would rather use peat moss for bedding 

 at fourteen dollars per ton than he would straw for nothing, 

 so much more satisfactory does he find it in all respects for 

 his horses. There are no doubt many swamps in the United 

 States composed of peat moss, which may some day prove 

 gold mines to their discoverers, as these deposits in Ger- 

 many must now be proving to their owners. 



The ordinary stable manure is yet used almost exclusively 

 by the market gardeners of Hudson County, N. J., and 

 that, too, at the rate of seventy-five tons to the acre. Very 

 little phosphates or other concentrated manures are used on 

 our lands, which are continually under tillage ; these are 

 always more telling on land broken up from sod, where the 

 fibrous roots of the sod stand in lieu of stable manure. 



The subject of market gardening is too large to attempt 

 any detail of general culture ; but I would advise all that 

 intend engaging extensively in the business of market gar- 

 dening to have greenhouses attached to the business to a 

 greater or less extent ; not only that they need never fail to 

 give a good return for capital invested, whether for use in 

 forcing vegetables, fruits or flowers, but, in addition, a mat- 

 ter of much importance is, that the labor of the workmen 

 can be utilized as well in midwinter as in midsummer. This 

 enables the employer to keep his hands all the year round, 

 instead of having the annoyance of hiring inexperienced 



