ON THE APPLICATION OP MANURES. 259 



moved at regular intervals of time, and containing 

 the same number of cattle during the whole period. 

 These pens were alternately ploughed and left un- 

 ploughed until the following spring, when all were 

 planted in corn, immediately followed by wheat. 

 The superiority of both crops on all the pens which 

 had remained unploughed for so many months after 

 the cattle had manured them, was just as distinctly 

 marked as if the dividing fences had continued 

 standing : it was too plain to admit even of the 

 slightest doubt. A near neighbour, a young farmer, 

 had made the same experiment on a somewhat dif- 

 ferent soil the year before, but with results precisely 

 the same. Similar trials I myself have made, and 

 seen made by others, with dry straw, alternately 

 ploughed in as soon as spread, and left on the sur- 

 face until the next spring. In every case the last 

 method appeared to be the best, as far as the fol- 

 lowing crop could prove it. The same experiment 

 has been made by myself and others with manure 

 from the horse-stables and winter-farm pens, con- 

 sisting of much unrotted corn offal, and, without a 

 solitary exception seen or heard of by me, the sur- 

 face application, after the corn was planted, pro- 

 duced most manifestly the best crop. I pon these 

 numerous concurrent and undeniable facts my opin- 

 ion has been founded, that it is best to apply manures 

 on the surface of land ; nor is it likely to change un- 

 til I see a still greater number, equally well authen- 

 ticated, on the opposite side : up to the present time 

 I have not heard of a solitary one. True it is that 

 I have read many ingenious, fine-spun arguments in 

 opposition to the opinion which I hold in common 

 with numerous other agriculturists, but no proofs 

 whatever have accompanied them, and therefore I 

 must remain incredulous until they are sustained 

 and corroborated by such facts as should always be 

 deemed indispensable to establish any practice what- 

 ever in any of the various branches of husbandry. 



