138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Harris, speaking of abnormal growth, said the cabbage left 

 to itself would run to a seed stock, but we had converted 

 it into an abnormal head. The tobacco plant, left to itself, 

 would run to seed, but we top it and produce an abnormal 

 leaf. As we have changed the nature of many of our agri- 

 cultural plants from the normal to the abnormal, we must, 

 therefore, change our mode of feeding. 



To digress a little, I think we should utilize all our by- 

 products, and, to that end, that the agricultural chemists and 

 sanitary engineers should get together. We have been talking 

 about the use of nitrates, phosphates and chemicals generally, 

 but if it were not for the chemical fertilizer manufacturers, 

 who are searching the world over for plant food and con- 

 verting it into available forms, the cost of plant food wonld 

 be much higher than it is. I hope that this Board and our 

 experiment stations will consider the great economic prob- 

 lem of supply and demand which underlies the question of 

 keeping np the fertility of onr soils. Within a short time a 

 commission of sanitary engineers has recommended to the 

 mayor of Boston that the city burn np its garbage. City 

 garbage, composed as it is of the swill which comes from the 

 houses, contains more or less fertility. To burn it np when 

 it might be converted into available plant food is, in my 

 judgment, not a sonnd, economic policy. What Boston does 

 is likely to be copied throughout ISTew England, and our 

 house garbage, and many other by-prodncts, will be con- 

 verted into gas and smoke in the interests of sanitation and 

 health, although a distinct loss to agriculture. The agricul- 

 tural chemists and the sanitary engineers could not do a 

 better work than to get together and agree npon some plan 

 which shall utilize all plant food jiroducts, and, at the same 

 time, be sanitary. 



Prof. Wm. p. Brooks (of Amherst). I have seen many 

 things in my experimental work which have convinced me 

 that if phosphoric acid is in relative excess, — although 

 there may be enough there, enough potash there for a real 

 crop, — still the crop will mature earlier, go forward faster 

 from the very start. *I have seen many results which convince 

 me that potash has a great deal to do with the development 



