APPENDIX. 233 



the corn first planted was destroyed by worms. A part of 

 these were supplied with the small Canada corn, a part with 

 beans. The whole was several times cut down by frost. The 

 produce was three hundred bushels of ears of sound corn, two 

 tons of pumpkins and squashes, and some potatoes and beans. 

 Dr. Dana, in his letter to Mr. Colman, dated Lowell, March G, 

 1839, suggests the trial of a solution of geine as a manure. 

 His directions for preparing it are as follows : " Boil one hun- 

 dred pounds of dry pulverized peat with two and a half pounds 

 of white ash, (an article imported from England,) containing 

 36 to 55 per cent, of pure soda, or its equivalent in pearlash or 

 potash, in a potash kettle, with 130 gallons of water ; boil for 

 a few hours, let it settle, and dip off the clear liquid for use. 

 Add the same quantity of alkali and water, boil and dip off as 

 before. The dark colored brown solution contains about half 

 an ounce per gallon of vegetable matter. It is to be applied 

 by watering grain crops, grams lands, or any other way the far- 

 mer's quick wit will point out." 



in the month of June, I prepared a solution of geine, obtain- 

 ed not by boiling, but by steeping the mud as taken from the 

 meadow, in a weak ley in tubs. I did not weigh the materials, 

 being careful only to use no more mud than the potash would 

 render soluble. The proportion was something like this : peat 

 100 lbs., potash 1 lb., water 50 gallons; stirred occasionally 

 for about a week, when the dark brown solution, described by Dr. 

 Dana, was dipped off and applied to some rows of corn, a por- 

 tion of a piece of starved barley, and a bed of onions sown on 

 land not well prepared for that crop. The corn was a portion 

 of the piece manured as above mentioned. On this the benefit 

 was not so obvious. The crop of barley on the portion water- 

 ed, was more than double the quantity both in straw and grain 

 to that on other portions of the field, the soil and treatment of 

 which was otherwise precisely similar. 



The bed of onions which had been prepared by dressing it 

 with a mixture of mud and ashes previous to the sowing of the 

 seed, hut which had not by harrowing been so completely pul- 

 verized, mixed and kneaded with the soil as the cultivators of 

 this crop deem essential to success, consisted of three and a 

 half square rods. The onions came up well, were well weed 



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