272 APPENDIX. 



and kneaded with the soil, as the cultivators of this crop deemed 

 essential to success, consisted of three and a half square rods. The 

 onions came up well, were well weeded, and about two bushels of 

 fresh horse-manure spread between the rows. In June, four rows 

 were first watered with the solution of geine above described. In 

 ten days the onions in these rows were nearly double the size of the 

 others. All but six rows of the remainder were then watered. The 

 growth of these soon outstripped the unwatered remainder. 



Mr. Henry Gould, who manages my farm on shares, and who 

 conducted all the foregoing experiments, without thinking of the 

 importance of leaving, at least one row unwatered, that we might 

 better ascertain the true effect of this management, seeing the 

 benefit to the parts thus watered, in about a week after treated the 

 remainder in the same manner. The ends of some of the rows, 

 however, which did not receive the watering, produced only very 

 small onions, such as are usually thrown away as worthless by cul- 

 tivators of this crop. This fact leads me to believe that if the 

 onions had not been watered with the solution of geine, not a single 

 bushel of a good size would have been produced on the whole piece. 

 At any rate, it was peat or geine rendered soluble by alkali, that 

 produced this large crop. 



The crop proved greater than our most sanguine expectations. 

 The onions were measured in the presence of the chairman of your 

 committee, and making ample allowance for the tops, which had not 

 been stripped off, were adjudged equal to 640 bushels to the acre. 

 In these experiments, 1 lbs. of potash, which cost 7 cents a pound, 

 bought at the retail price, were used. Potash, although dearer 

 than wood ashes at 12| cents per bushel, is, I think, cheaper than 

 the white ash mentioned by Dr. Dana, and sufficiently cheap to 

 make, with meadow mud, a far cheaper manure than such as in 

 general used among our farmers. The experiment satisfies me that 

 nothing better than potash and peat can be used for most if not all 

 our cultivated vegetables, and the economy of watering with a solu- 

 tion of geine, such as are cultivated in rows, I think cannot be 

 doubted. The reason why the corn was not very obviously bene- 

 fited, I think must have been that the portion of the roots to which 

 it was applied, was already fully supplied with nutriment out of the 



