233 APPENDIX. 



second trial in the same soil. The compost was as formerly- 

 composed by mixing the mud, barn manure, ashes or potash 

 together in the field, in spring, two or three weeks before the 

 corn was planted ; in a part of it, say, the manure for two acres, 

 about 20 lbs. of nitrate of potash was used. Wherever the 

 nitre was used, worms were absent ; other parts of the field 

 were more or less injured by them. This was all the good that 

 we could positively ascribe to the nitre. Our crops were in a 

 most flourishing condition on the morning of the 30th of June, 

 in the afternoon and evening of that day, a violent tempest and 

 two showers of hail, blew down my barn, half my fruit trees, 

 and prostrated and mangled the corn. I should have bargained 

 readily with any one who would have insured me half the crop 

 realized the preceding year from the same land and manage- 

 ment. But the healing powers of nature and the genial influ- 

 ences of summer suns and showers, in a few days restored the 

 field again to a flourishing condition. A drought more severe 

 than that of the preceding season followed in August; and our 

 crop of corn per acre, was about 1-4 less than the .crop of that 

 year. My farmer, H. L. Gould, from his success with the mud 

 which you analyzed, was strongly impressed with the belief 

 that other peat mud would not prove as good. I requested him 

 to make an experiment, which he accordingly did, with two 

 cart loads of peat, such as makes good fuel, taken directly from 

 the swamp, mixed with ashes, and used in the same quantity 

 by measure, as the other compost. He planted with this four 

 rows of corn through the piece. And, contrary to his expecta- 

 tions, if there was any difference, he acknowledged these rows 

 were better than the adjoining ones. The mud you analyzed, 

 contained, you recollect, a large portion of granitic sand. 

 This peat much less sand but more water, it being quite spongy. 

 The same bulk, therefore, as taken from the meadow and used 

 in our experiment would probably have weighed, when dry, 

 not more than 1-3 or 1-4 as much as the other. The quantity 

 of geine in the shovelful of the two kinds, vary not very much 

 after all. I regret that Mr. Gould did not repeat his experi- 

 ments with the solution of geine last season. My farm is seven 

 miles from my residence, and, like yourself 1 turn no furrows 

 with my own hand, nor can 1 oversee in their various stages, 



