No. 4.] CHExMICAL AND FARM MANURES. 177 



manage il. I think there is. Acting upon the few hints 

 which I have given you to-day and other hints which have 

 been put in writing, I feel confident that you can save largely 

 in the cost of raising corn. 



One other point. Some nine years ago I took an acre of 

 fair soil, medium loam, and divided it into four equal parts, 

 and began manuring the first quarter with six cords of ma- 

 nure ; the second with three cords and one hundred and 

 twenty-five pounds of muriate of potash ; the third like the 

 first ; and the fourth like the second. The same experiment 

 w^as twice repeated. I have kept it up, growing corn all 

 except two jears out of the nine. Those two years the laud 

 was in grass, sown the previous summer with the corn. 

 Now for the results. We have obtained almost exactly iden- 

 tical crops from the two kinds of manure, but the full 

 amount of manure costs about seven dollars an acre more 

 than the lesser amount and the potash. This year we got a 

 little more corn on the lesser amount of manure and the 

 potash than wdiere every year we had been putting six cords. 

 After about three years I found that half the amount of 

 manure and the potash was not keeping up, and I raised the 

 amount of manure to two-thirds, so that for the last five 

 years two quarters have had six cords of manure and the 

 others four cords and the potash. 



Question. What value do you place on the manure? 

 Professor Brooks. Five dollars a cord on the land. I 

 believe this is an important point to you farmers who have 

 to study the economies of farming closely. The lesser 

 amount of manure with potash will give you in the first 

 place a good crop of corn, and then when you seed to grass 

 or clover j'ou get a -better crop than when you use manure 

 alone. That was so in the two years in this experiment, 

 when the land was in grass and clover. And it is to that 

 fact largely that I now attribute the fact that this year we 

 have more corn on the lesser amount of manure and potash 

 than on the manure alone. The corn this year has been 

 feeding on the rotted stubble of the clover. 



Question. Have you used nitrate of soda on wet land, 

 — mucky land? 



Professor Brooks. No, because we have no mucky land. 



