142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



placed upon land, it is worse than lost; but, if it can be 

 neutralized, the acidity taken out of it by mixing it with 

 manure, jt is very valuable. Dr. Loring has expressed 

 my mind so fully in regard to it, that I want to take him by 

 the hand and thank him for doing so. 



Mr. Sessions. I should like to have Mr. Knowlton relate 

 his experience in regard to the application of coal ashes upon 

 a gravelly knoll in raising rye. I am informed that he has 

 left the city, and I will say that I visited his farm in Octo- 

 ber, and saw a piece of ground upon which a crop of rye 

 had been sown the present fall, which looked well. He had 

 raised a crop of rye for some six or eight years in succession 

 on that piece of about one acre, and this crop had increased 

 every year in quantity ; and all the application he made to 

 the orpound was the coal ashes he made in his establishment. 



Mr. Taft. It should be said that Mr. Knowlton burns 

 about as much wood as he does coal, and it all goes on that 

 piece of land. 



Mr. Lewis. I want to take a little exception to my friend, 

 Dr. Loring's, statement about muck. He is down on muck 

 because muck has b en misapplied. I apprehend that if 

 muck is put upon that soil to which it is adapted, it is of 

 great value. 



Dr. Loring. Will the gentleman excuse me one moment ? 

 I do not want any gentleman to say that I am " down on 

 muck." We have reporters here, and it may get into the 

 newspapers. I want to say distinctly, that I am not " down 

 on muck." I go heart and hand with any gentleman here in 

 the proper application of it. I want to have what I say 

 properly stated, and properly and fairly judged. I repeat, I 

 am not "down on muck"; I merely want to have it properly 

 applied. I am only " down on muck " the same as I am 

 "down " on sand, when it is applied in the wrong place. 



Mr. Lewis. That is all right, then ; I will let that pass. 

 But I am down on Dr. Loring for one suggestion he has 

 made ; and that is, that f^lrmer8 should let those rascally, 

 worthless fertilizer-men alone a year. That won't do. They 

 will crawl out of this hole that Massachusetts has dug through 

 the HoosaCj and come out of the big end of the tunnel in the 



