108 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Applying manure, $2 40 



112 rods ditch, (one-half expense,) . . . . 18 67 



Total expense, 178 07 



Per Contra. 

 12 tons of hay raised since 1864, valued, standing^ 



at $13, $156 00 



Increased value of land, 180 00 



Total, $336 00 



HoPKiNTON, August 1, 1869. 



MANURES. 



ESSEX. 



From the Report of the Committee. 

 The Committee on Manures have received but one invitation 

 from the farmers of Essex to examine the progress and results 

 of experiments with manures or commercial fertilizers. The 

 farm of Wm. R. Putnam, of Danvers, was visited by his request 

 in September, and some crops upon which he had applied vari- 

 ous kinds of fertilizers were examined. Mr. Putnam has handed 

 us a report of these experiments, which we herewith transmit 

 for publication. Mr. P. deserves commendation for his zeal and 

 painstaking in procuring and applying to his crops some of the 

 well-known compounds called fertilizers. In examining the 

 crops to which they had been applied, but little new information 

 was obtained, and but few useful facts were deducible. In fact, 

 what can be learned from the experiment of seeking, in the 

 market, a mixture called " Croasdale superphosphate," or 

 " Baugh's raw bones," or any other " raw bone " compounds, 

 and applying them to a few rows in a corn-field or potato-patch ? 

 In the first place, who knows what the raw bone mixtures or 

 " superphosphates " are made of ? Certainly the experimenter 

 does not. It is apparent, then, that the experiments must be 



