202 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



vaults be prepared so as to save tlie urine from the stables, and 

 fifty per cent, more would be realized, to say the least, than 

 now is from the stable and yard. The results upon trying this 

 manure are truly surprising. Cases have come under the knowl- 

 edge of the committee, where it has been tried upon grass land, 

 and It is not too much to say that the crop was doubled. This 

 manure is too little thought of by farmers generally, and allowed 

 to run to waste, and thus is entirely lost. 



Super- phosphate, as a substitute for manure has been used 

 with great success. This is composed of bone dust, sulphuric 

 acid, Peruvian guano and sulphate of ammonia, and the effects 

 of this in some cases are surprising. One of the committee, 

 for experiment, tried this composition on a piece of common 

 light sod. At an expense of six dollars per acre, results were 

 secured which could not have been realized from twenty cart 

 loads of good yard manure. On the next year the same exper- 

 iment was tried, with the same surprising effects. Again the 

 experiment was tried, on plain land of ordinary fertility, and 

 the same effects were proportionally realized. But it is found 

 upon trial that this composition cannot be used with equal suc- 

 cess upon wet land. On the whole, we are led to feel that 

 super-phosphate can be used by the practical farmer with 

 great benefit. 



An experiment was also tried with another article, called 

 Poudrette, and such results were secured as led us to feel, when 

 it is rightly applied, it can be used to good advantage. But 

 our own experience gives the balance decidedly in favor of 

 super-phosphate. 



We come next to treat of another class of substances which 

 are applied with much success in producing crops. We have 

 reference to plaster of Paris, lime, &c. We class these by 

 themselves ; for it must be borne in mind that they do not con- 

 tain in themselves the elments of fertility. This is particularly 

 the case with plaster and lime, and it is a fact that the farmer 

 would do well to bear in mind, for they seem to act upon the 

 soil merely as a stimulus, so to speak, and bring into active 

 operation the elements of fertility which the soil may already 

 possess or contain. And hence we expect no further results 

 from them than to wake the latent energies, which in some soils, 

 seem to lay a long time dormant and useless. But the farmer 



