ii6 



— hence a leaf from my personal experience in the preparation 

 and application of manures. 



There is an idea, very generally prevalent in the community, 

 that, though other substitutes may do for an emergency, yet to 

 keep up the fertility of the farm through a long series of years 

 barn yard manure, by which is specially meant that of horses 

 and neat stock, is, after all the only reliance. I believe that this 

 sweeping assertion can \)C shown to belong to the popular class 

 of errors, though countenanced very generally by the agricultu- 

 ral press, and by the agricultural writers of the popular type. 

 To demonstrate that the agriculture of the farmers of an entire 

 community is carried on and that most successfully too, with 

 but little dependence on the manure of the barn yard as a ferti- 

 lizer, I will instance the practice of the farmers of Marblehead 

 extending over a period of more than twenty years. Their crops 

 are mostly early potatoes, cabbages, squashes and onions, vegeta- 

 bles which require the very highest feeding to give first class 

 crops, and these enterprising tillers of the soil are well known to 

 fame as a class who are contented with nothing less than first 

 class crops, and when they fail in growing these the cases are 

 exceptional. As a body, beyond one or perhaps two cows for 

 family use they keep almost no stock in addition to that needed 

 to carry on the work of the farm. These consist of from two 

 to four horses, or in the place of two of the horses, a yoke of 

 oxen. From such resources it will be seen that there can aver- 

 age but about half a dozen cords of home made, barn manure an- 

 nually. Of barn vard manure from other sources some of them 

 on an average purchase three or four cords a year, while half of 

 ■ them do not purchase any at all. Now these farmers will aver- 

 age as many as five acres each in vegetable crops, and their av- 

 erage application of manure is certainly as high as from eight to 

 ten cords to the acre. 



It will be seen, then, that while the average use of barn yard 



