POTASH IN AGRICULTURE. 131 



applied. "When the Garden Committee visited the peach orchard 

 of Mr. Miles, in Concord, which was then bearing a great crop, 

 they were surprised to find the fruit on the speaker's trees much 

 higher colored and higher flavored. This orchard was on the same 

 sandy soil as the asparagus bed before spoken of. Excepting that 

 they make cultivation more difficult the stones are a benefit to the 

 ground. They keep the soil moist, like a mulch. Professor 

 Goessmann thinks that certain applications will affect the flavor 

 of fruit, and is now experimenting on this point. 



Mr. Hills had a small Benoni apple tree in soil so poor that it 

 made neither wood nor fruit, to which he applied a peck of ashes in 

 midsummer, and the next year it made a foot of growth and was 

 overburdened with fruit. This answered the question whether his 

 soil had not ashes enough already. 



Samuel Hartwell said that he uses a ton each of ashes and bone 

 annually on his asparagus with so good results that he will con- 

 tinue the practice, and might also apply them on his peach 

 orchard. 



Asa Clement said that he bought raw bones for fifty cents per 

 hundred pounds, and broke them with a sledge-hammer, and 

 reduced them by packing in ashes, or by dissolving in potash. 

 He got good results, but it was too much work to break the bones 

 in that way. He preferred to use steamed bones, which must have 

 acid to dissolve them. He had been unable to find any place 

 where he could get raw bones ground. 



The Chairman of the Committee on Discussion remarked that, 

 though disappointed by the non-arrival of the essayist, the meet- 

 ing had been most instructive. All present knew something 

 which the}' did not know when the}' came here. He announced 

 for the next Saturday a paper on " The Leaf as a Studj'," by 

 Dr. G. Austin Bowen. 



BUSINESS MEETING. 



Saturday, February 28, 1885. 



An adjourned meeting of the Society was holden at 11 o'clock, 

 the President, John B. Moore, in the chair. 



No business being brought before the meeting, it adjourned to 

 Saturday, March 7. 



