PUT DOWN FRAUDS IN FERTILIZERS. 221 



know if we can afford to pay sixty dollars a ton for fish pomace, 

 which the doctor tells us is worth twenty dollars, and how we 

 can afford to pay sixty dollars a ton for the waste of a sugar 

 refinery, which those who make it and those who liave experi- 

 mented upon it declare to be absolutely without value. I say 

 it is a sliame that the farmers of this Commonwealth and of 

 New England should be cheated in this way. The farmers 

 ought to combine as one man and put it down ; and there is 

 not a day to be wasted before we begin upon it, — not a single 

 day. 



I will detain you but a moment longer. I said at the outset 

 that I was unable to comprehend all that a chemist says when 

 he speaks of these matters. The doctor has used fewer hard 

 names than I am accustomed to hear when chemists speak on 

 agricultural topics, and having conversed with him frequently 

 on this subject, I am probably able to comprehend more than I 

 should be able to if I had not had this privilege ; but I declare 

 to you that I am greatly encouraged by what he has said and 

 what he has done. I have been over his farm repeatedly, and I 

 have been amazed to see the crops standing there and the condi- 

 tion of the land. Even the stubble-land will show you that the 

 crops have been very large indeed. I went on to one field, on 

 which no excrementitious manure had been put for seven 

 years ; a man had just gone over it with a mowing machine, 

 and I calculated there was a ton and a half per acre of the very 

 best English hay lying upon the ground that day — redtop and 

 timotliy — worth some dollars more a ton than the coarse timothy 

 that gives you two and a half or three tons to the acre. These 

 things are encouraging, and if it were not that I doubt if the 

 doctor would be able to talk with all the people who would 

 naturally visit him, I should advise you all to go and see what 

 he has done with tliose little fertilizers that he carries in his 

 waistcoat pocket or in his hat, and drops them at his pleasure 

 on swamp or plain, and produces such wonderful crops. I 

 believe there is something to learn in regard to these things. I 

 am always engaged in looking ahead to see if we cannot adopt 

 some method of conducting our operations by which we can 

 realize profits equal to those of men skilled in mechanical pur- 

 suits. But what I wish particularly to urge is, that some com- 

 bination be formed among us to put down these cheats and 



