138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to manufacture one that is not reliable ; more profitable to 

 them in various ways. In the first place, it would increase 

 their trade ; and, in the next place, it would increase the con- 

 sumption enormously in the State of Massachusetts. Why, 

 if the farmers could rely upon the commercial fertilizers they 

 purchase in the market, there is no telling the vast amount 

 that would be immediately and rapidly substituted for the 

 more ordinary forms of fertilizing material. Am I not right? 

 Certainly I am. Now, if the farmer desires to know what in 

 the world he is going to do for himself during that year of 

 suspension, let him go to every ash-heap, and seize on every 

 bone he can find, and buy a little nitric acid, and go to work 

 and manufacture his own fertilizers, for the time being. Let 

 him import ashes ; let him take the real solid substance, and 

 dilute it for himself. If he is going to have anything mixed, 

 let him do his own mixing, and then he will get along well 

 enough ; there is no doubt about it at all. Why, not one- 

 half the amount of ashes is used that should be. There are 

 towns on this road that extends from here to Greenfield, and 

 in all that agricultural section, in which ashes are largely im- 

 ported and used. They should be purchased east and west, 

 north and south, by the Massachusetts farmer, and applied 

 to his crops. Peruvian guano imported and sold in bags is 

 the foundation of enormous amount of extended fertilizing 

 material. You can extend Peruvian guano just as well as the 

 manufacturer of phosphates can, can't you? Take it then, 

 and extend it ; buy a bag, bu}' half a ton, and extend it for 

 yourselves. Don't pay a man $40 a ton to extend it for you. 

 But be sure and buy the real article to begin with ; if you 

 have got to dilute it, dilute it. Then there is a preparation 

 now being made at Brighton, from the refuse of the Abattoir 

 there, of which, I understand, some 125 tons are manufactured 

 a week. That comes directly from the mill of nature herself. 

 Buy that, and extend it yourself, if you want to, just exactly 

 as the dealers in superphosphates are buying it and extend- 

 ing it for their purposes. Why can't you extend it as well 

 as they can ? Until you can get some reliable manufactured 

 commercial fertilizers, fall back upon those which are pro- 

 vided by nature herself, and are pure, and then extend and 

 dilute them to suit your own purposes. Carry that plan into 



