130 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



approve of ashes as a fertilizer. The other fertilizers, applied at 

 the same time with the ashes in his experiment, gave excellent 

 results. Perhaps if he had applied the ashes earlier in the season 

 he might have seen the result earlier. He uses nearly all his 

 ashes in combination with bone, believing that when so mixed and 

 heated up both are in a better form for plant food. He has a great 

 opinion of ashes, but would like to see the effect of his manures 

 immediately. 



President Moore suggested that there might have been sufficient 

 potash in Mr. Hills's soil before the ashes were applied. The 

 asparagus bed before mentioned was on a high, dry, sandy loam. 

 The natural growth was pitch pine ; this had been cut off about 

 twenty-live years before, and the land allowed to run wild ; thej'e 

 was not a stick on it worth saving. He applied eight hundred 

 pounds of steamed, dried, and ground bone, and five hundred 

 pounds of muriate of ix>tasli to the acre, early in spring. They 

 were mixed together before applying, and no other fertilizer was 

 used. He gets as good asparagus there as anywhere. Tbe ground 

 had never been cropped before the asparagus was planted. The 

 carting of stable manure and working it into the ground would 

 have cost nearlj* as much as the bone and potash used. He has a 

 vineyard on the same soil, which is underlaid at the depth of 

 about two and a half feet with stones as large as paving-stones, 

 and has cobble-stones mixed through it, so that he had to use a crow- 

 bar in digging holes for a grape trellis. The grapes planted there 

 do not suffer from drought ; the roots run down about fifteen or 

 sixteen inches, the ground being ploughed to that depth. The 

 cobble-stones are left for mulching. Professor Stockbridge told 

 him that, if he were in the western part of the State, the}' would 

 put him in an insane asylum if he attempted to cultivate such land. 



Mr. Strong thought the statement of the President most sur- 

 prising. When he saw his (the President's) vineyard on such a 

 soil as had just been described it was a great surprise to him that 

 it should do so well, but his surprise was still greater in regard to 

 the asparagus, our ideas of its requirements are so different. 

 He thought that, while the effect of bone meal is immediate, it is 

 also more or less lasting. 



President Moore thought that bone and potash are far better 

 than stable manure for fruit of any kind. The color and flavor 

 of fruit are affected by the fertilizers used. He believes that the 

 color and quality of his peaches have been improved by the potash 



