30 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



manufactured fertilizer of equal potency, the labor of apply- 

 ing which will save at least $5 more. The freedom from wild 

 carrots, dock, Canada thistles and other noxious weeds, is 

 a further consideration in favor of this concentrated manure 

 over the crude article of the barn-yard. Calico printers, for 

 many years, used the solid excrement of the cow to brighten 

 and fasten colors in cotton cloth. Some latent quality was 

 ascribed to the living animal, till it was discovered that a 

 mixture of phosphate of soda and some other chemical salt 

 answered the same purpose, and was more cleanly, economical 

 and convenient in application. Peruvian bark, for many cen- 

 turies, was regarded as the only cure for fever, and the poor 

 patient was compelled, under the direction of the family 

 physician, to drug his port wine with this nauseous and bulky 

 remedy ; but medical and chemical science discovered that the 

 curative principle of this bark consisted of the quinine to be 

 extracted from it, and the useless woody fibre is now dis- 

 pensed with. Agricultural chemistry has discovered that the 

 larger part of the bulky and useless portions of barn-yard 

 manure may be dispensed with, and the fertilizing value is 

 thereby reduced to a few chemical elements, which furnish 

 food for plants or produce soluble action in certain ingredients 

 of the common soil. Guano, bone-dust, phosphate of lime 

 and gypsum constitute important representatives of the fer- 

 tilizing qualities needed ; and when we reflect that but one- 

 fortieth of the weight of even the much-valued horse manure, 

 when reduced, is fertilizing matter, we are irresistibly driven 

 to the belief that a corresponding reform in fertilizing 

 land is as necessary in agriculture as the introduction of minute 

 doses of quinine to cure the fever, instead of filling the 

 patient's stomach with bushels of Peruvian bark. If science 

 was permitted to do for farming what it has done for manu- 

 facturing and other occupations in this Commonwealth, our 

 lands would double in value and in products. Yankee energy 

 and success would be developed among the agricultural classes, 

 and our young men would find the homestead of their fathers, 

 in the old Bay State, too valuable an inheritance to leave for 

 the discomforts of Western emigration, or the more hazardous 

 life of untried business speculations. 



