EXPERIMENTS ON POTATOES. 85 



Now, gentlemen, there has been a long series of experi- 

 ments going on there. I only give you these results as 

 samples of successes and failures. There are a great many 

 questions which follow behind these, I know. Practical men 

 will ask, What does it cost? What effect does it have upon 

 the land ? Do you believe this is the result of the materials 

 you use, or is it the result of atmospheric influences? Have 

 not the seasons affected the result so that no dependence can 

 be placed upon it? All these are side questions which come 

 in, which every reasonable man who is experimenting must 

 be ready to answer. But I should exhaust your patience if I 

 undertook to go minutely into these things. 



Let me say a word in regard to the experiments that have 

 not been successful. The experiment with potatoes in 1873 

 was a total and absolute failure, and yet I got a great deal 

 better crop of potatoes than was got with barnyard manure, 

 where five times the value of barnyard manure was applied. 

 This year the experiment with potatoes was a satisfactory one. 

 Anything in this matter is satisfactory. When I am sure I 

 get a correct answer from nature I do not care what it is, if it 

 satisfies me ; my notions are of no account on this matter. I 

 go in an honest way to nature to get an answer, and whatever 

 nature says, if I am able to interpret that answer, satisfies 

 me. I have no theories to sustain. This year the experi- 

 ment with potatoes was, as I have said, a success. I said I 

 would make a hundred bushels over and above what the land 

 would make without manure. The land planted without 

 manure yielded one hundred and twenty-eight bushels, which 

 is more than most of you get. The land with manure yielded 

 two hundred and nineteen bushels ; the same number of hills, 

 and treated in precisely the same way. I lacked nine bushels 

 of getting my hundred, over and above what the land would 

 produce without manure, so that I call that a fair success. 



I will only take your time to say one thing more, because, 

 from my experience, I know the question that gentlemen will 

 ask me. They will say this is foolish talk ; but it does not make 

 any difference. If nature answers it so, that is none of my 

 business. "Why," says the farmer, "this is all humbug. If 

 you say you can make sixty bushels, why can't you make 

 eighty ; and if you can make eighty, why can't you make a 



