12 MR. newell's address. 



ed one, and I knew just as much of the cause and its remedy, be- 

 fore reading at all, as I now do. It is to me all in the dark, like the 

 disease in the buttonwood. That tree seems to be recovering ; 

 may we not hope that the rot in the potato will disappear ? I have 

 tried lime and plaster with good and bad success. I have hardly 

 supposed them manures that acted upon the soils, of themselves, but 

 rather attracted from the atmosphere fertility, and let vegetation feed 

 it off. And whether its various success is owing to the obstinacy of 

 the one to receive, and of the other to accept of bounty, or whether 

 their favors are bestowed only under a combination of circumstances 

 not always existing, is to me unknown. I used plaster one year 

 freely upon a potato field, without any manure. The next year, it 

 was sowed with w^heat, with a Uming of three casks to the acre, and 

 grass seed sowed. A fair crop of potatoes and wheat, and two good 

 crops of hay were taken off. I then sold the lot. The plaster or 

 lime, or both, must have helped these crops. I have sowed plaster 

 upon alternate rows in a potato field ; the vines plastered will keep 

 green the longest. On some pastures it will improve the feed, on oth- 

 ers, not at all. I have some doubts whether lime and dung should 

 be used the sadie year, unless the dung is ploughed in, and the lime 

 sowed on the top. I have no scruples in using plaster with dung. 

 I do not understand how these minerals affect vegetation — but that 

 they do, I have no doubt, under certain circumstances ; and al- 

 though these circumstances seem to be accidental, I do not suppose 

 they are. We still hope that learning and experiments will make it 

 all plain. Experiments may be considered as the raw material, for 

 science to work upon. Tlie agricultural newspapers treat more or 

 less on the subject of manuring ; and also agiicultural encyclopedias. 

 There are also treatises by Dana and Falkner, and another by Bom- 

 raer, for which he has secured a patent. All farmers will obtain val- 

 uable information by a perusal of these works. 



The Bommer method is a very expeditious mode of making ma- 

 nure. He gives assurance that a ton of dry straw, with about half 

 a ton of other ingredients, such as lime, soot, ashes, plaster, salt, 

 night soil, &c., will make four tons of manure. Of course two and 

 a half tons of water must be added. I will not Aveary your patience 

 in going further into detail, in making this manure. If the manure 

 when made possesses the fertility his book purports, it must be valua- 

 ble in a grain-growing couatry. But it may be doubted whether it 



