SPECIAL FERTILIZERS USED. 181 



opposite. It is not necessary for us, gentlemen, to leave our 

 own farms to find soils presenting striking dissimilarities in 

 chemical composition as well as in physical characteristics. This 

 is a point which should receive more consideration in the con- 

 duct of our farms. 



With the design of attempting to bring this farm into good 

 condition without the use of barnyard or stable dung, no stock 

 was kept upon the premises save a cow and a heifer the first 

 two years, and with the exception of a few loads of manure pur- 

 chased for garden uses at the start, no excrementitious products 

 have been bought during the seven years it has been in my 

 hands. The farm at the present time sustains eighteen cows, 

 five horses, three hogs, and for a portion of the year, one yoke 

 of oxen. The product of hay the past season was fifty tons, 

 corn, two hundred bushels, rye, perhaps twenty bushels, with 

 large quantities of apples, grapes and other fruits. The pro- 

 ductive capabilities of the fields have been aroused through the 

 agency of fertilizing substances outside of animal excrement, 

 and the farm placed in position to maintain its good tilth by the 

 manurial products which it is now capable of supplying. To 

 state the matter explicitly, and thus avoid the possibility of any 

 misunderstanding, the farm was raised from its unproductive 

 condition during the first three or five years of the experiment, 

 by special fertilizers, so that by increase of products it has been 

 made capable of sustaining a herd of animals, which animals 

 now supply all the fertilizing material needed, and the manufac- 

 ture and use of chemical fertilizers have been in a large measure 

 suspended. In short, the experiment has practically come to 

 an end through its perfect success. 



In bringing about these results, fifteen tons of bones, one hun- 

 dred bushels of unleached ashes, four tons of fish pomace, two 

 tons of Peruvian guano, five hundred pounds of crude potash, 

 one ton of oil of vitirol, ten casks of lime, and several hundred 

 pounds altogether of sulphate of magnesia, nitrates of soda and 

 potassa, chloride of sodium, oxide of manganese, sulphate of 

 iron, sulphate of ammonia, <fcc., have been employed. Eight 

 tons of the bones have been made on the farm into what is 

 known as " Superphosphate," by dissolving them in the condi- 

 tion of fine powder in oil of vitriol, three tons have been com- 

 bined with unleached wood ashes, and the remaining four tons 



