PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 359 



premium of Colmaii's Report, to Austin J. Roberts, of Middle- 

 borough, who made 202 loads. 



In the manufacture of compost manure, no farmer need be 

 at a loss for material, — the sources of fertility are unlimited, — 

 the hedgerows around his fields — peat and mud from his low 

 meadows — afford an inexhaustible supply; in fact, a// animal 

 or vegetable matter, or even sawdust and spent tan, after hav- 

 ing been used as bedding for horses or neat stock, or when 

 divested of their acidity, by mixing with a sufficiency of barn 

 manure, ashes or lime, to induce fermentation, are rendered an 

 efficient manure. 



It was prophetically said, by the lamented Fessenden, that 

 "the time may come in which science may impress into the 

 service of the cultivator, every element or substance which 

 constitutes the globe we inhabit, — the world of matter become 

 completely subservient to the world of mind. Then, and not 

 till then, will agriculture have attained the utmost degree of 

 perfection of which it is capable." 



Every farmer, by a judicious application of labor, can, in a 

 few years, render all the land he ought to cultivate, fertile ; 

 and it should always be borne in mind, that fertile fields draw 

 the largest dividends from the atmosphere.* It was beautifully 

 said by one of the earliest pioneers in modern husbandry, in 

 this county, that " the air is composed of an infinity of g'^ses, — 

 of vapors exhaled from the bosom of the earth, as much more 

 fertilizing than the more dense and earthy manures, as volatile 

 alkali is more fertilizing than the fixed." 



A rich, well cultivated soil, not only attracts moisture from 

 the atmosphere, but it more readily imbibes and retains those 

 life-sustaining gases, so indispensable to vegetation. 



HORACE COLLAMORE. 



Seth Sprague^s Statement on Corn. 



The acre of land entered by me for premium, on Indian 

 corn, has been in pasture for more than thirty years, and not 



* Dr. Macomber. 



