224 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



do not believe it would be of any use to apply muck to cold and 

 wet muck laud. 



Tben in rei)ly to what has been said in regard to phosphates : 

 I don't think I went into this expenditure of seven or eight hun- 

 dred dollars for phosphates with my eyes quite so nearly closed 

 as the gentleman seems to infer. After I had experimented with 

 phosphates for awhile, I found a particular kind that I thought 

 good. I chose to take that because it seemed to me it was the 

 best. But there was another reason why I chose it. I recol- 

 lected years ago meeting a man who was collecting bones, 

 which he took to a phosphate manufacturer, and for which he 

 received thirty dollars a ton. How large a proportion of those 

 bones entered into the composition of the phosphates, I am 

 unable to say ; but if it was a fact that those bones, costing that 

 amount, went into the composition of the phosphate, I tliink 

 there was more expense attending its manufacture, and more 

 value in it, than Governor Brown would seem to believe. I 

 think, moreover, that Peruvian guano furnishes the ammonia 

 for those phosphates, and I know the price of that is eighty or 

 ninety dollars a ton. How largely that enters into the com- 

 position of the phosphate, I don't know, but I think, not- 

 withstanding bone-black is not worth anything, that I have 

 reason to know that the phosphate I have used is a valuable 

 manure. 



Mr. Barnard. My farm is very springy, and below my house, 

 down towards the peat mud, it is very moist. I have put in 

 miles of underdraining, and I wish I had put in miles more of 

 it ; but the peat mud has been used exclusively on hard-pau 

 land ; I have no sand land. 



Mr. Forbes, of . Many are aware that Solon Robin- 

 son, of the " New York Tribune," recommends the use of lime 

 and salt as a special manure. I would like to inquire wlicther 

 any of those present have used it, and are able to tell the 

 results. 



President Clark. Two or three questions have arisen 

 recently in the discussion, which perhaps make it proper for me 

 to say a word. 



In the first place, I was very much surprised at the statement 

 made here that the refuse of a sugar refinery is of no value. 

 Gentlemen perhaps know that sugar is refined by solution and 



