24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Mr. B. P. Ware of Marblehead. Market gardeners make 

 what they call a compost heap for the purpose of producing 

 fermentation. Is the gain that the farmer or market gar- 

 dener will derive by applying that manure after it has gone 

 through the process of fermentation, which is supposed to 

 render it more readily available as plant food, greater than 

 the loss which will be occasioned by the process of fermenta- 

 tion? 



Professor Whitcher. That is a very difficult question to 

 answer, because nobody can tell. I suppose it might be 

 accepted as good proof that the advantage is greater than 

 the disadvantage, from the fact that most market gardeners 

 do that very thing. When we get down to the average 

 judgment of any particular class who have studied their 

 business as market gardeners have done, their judgment is 

 very liable to be right. I have faith enough in humanity to 

 believe that this is true, and when I find the teachings of 

 what I believe to be science run contrary to that, I am 

 pretty careful to look the teachings over again, to see if 

 somebody has not made a mistake. I am inclined to think 

 that the advantage is not due, as you have suggested, to the 

 plant food being rendered more readily available, because I 

 do not think that is true, but I think it is in a better mechan- 

 ical condition, and therefore more generally distributed 

 through the ground. I think it is due more to the mechani- 

 cal condition than to any chemical change that results from 

 fermentation. Fermentation does result in a loss of nitro- 

 gen ; but, on the other hand, there may be such a supply of 

 nitrogen left in the manure that the greater uniformity with 

 which it can be distributed through the soil more than makes 

 up for any loss in the process of fermentation. I think that 

 may be true ; but, on the other hand, I do not know but that 

 there are other ways of getting the manure in just as good 

 shape, and still save the nitrogen. I think it could be done. 

 I should want to try it if I were engaged in that kind of work. 



Secretary Sessions. The first question that was asked in 

 regard to spreading manure limited it to manure that was 

 put on the ground late in the fall, and remained through the 

 winter. Would you answer the question in the same way, if 

 the manure was spread on the land in August or September? 



