42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



manure. I have had some experience in that line for the last 

 thirty years. I began about thirty years ago by using leached 

 ashes, delivered on my premises at four cents a bushel, for 

 which I am now glad to pay eight cents a bushel and haul 

 them four miles. I have great faith in the virtue of ashes, 

 whether live ashes or leached, for agricultural purposes, on 

 gravelly or sandy soil. I have never known them, in my experi- 

 ence, to fail. I have used them in various ways — sometimes by 

 composting them with muck and barnyard manure, sometimes 

 by mixing them with plaster. Of late years for my corn crop, I 

 have more commonly pursued the latter method, of mixing per- 

 haps two bushels of plaster with three of ashes. I find that with 

 this simple dressing, dropped in the hill when planting corn, I 

 double my crop on ordinary gravelly soils. I put a moderate 

 handful in a hill, taking care that the corn is not dropped upon 

 the ashes. Live ashes might be used in the same way, but they 

 must be used, of course, more cautiously. In the case of live 

 ashes, the effect is more immediate, I doubt not, on the crops, 

 owing to the presence of those properties which, in the case of 

 leached ashes, are drained out in the processes of leaching ; 

 but the effect of the leached ashes which we get from the soap- 

 boiler is far more durable. I have seen an instance where 

 leached ashes were applied liberally twenty-five years before 

 and the effect was still visible. 



Professor Chadbourne. I should be glad to say a few words 

 upon tlie subject of mineral manures. My friend Foote has re- 

 ferred to certain wells, which he has intimated have come up 

 here from the " hub," to be pumped by those who live upon the 

 rim of the universe. I live on the rim. I have not only lived 

 in Berkshire, and, therefore, claim to have been upon the rim, 

 but I live now on the outer rim. I have come from a place where 

 we call this " the hub." I supposed my friend referred to the 

 scientific men who have made the study of plant-life a specialty, 

 and, therefore, are supposed to know exactly what plants need 

 in order that they may grow well. I do not believe there is a 

 chemist or naturalist in the world who knows so well what a 

 plant needs for its growth, as the plant does itself. I am fully 

 satisfied that long before chemists were invented, or naturalists 

 known, the plants understood that thing. Tlie best that scien- 



