MANURES. Ill 



the use and the effects of different kinds of manure as will 

 enable the farmers of the county to judge better what kinds of 

 manure to use. If in my statements I can furnish a peg for 

 you to hang your report on, I shall be satisfied. 



Early in April last, when planting pease, part of the piece 

 was manured with good manure made by the horses, cows and 

 sheep, applied at the rate of six cords to the acre ; to the re- 

 mainder I applied Croasdale's superphosphate, at the rate of 

 four hundred pounds to the acre. This costs about three cents 

 per pound, and it is said that it is one-third Peruvian guano, 

 and the remainder mostly mineral phosphate from South Caro- 

 lina. The pease were as early and produced as well as those 

 that were planted upon the manure. 



Some of the farmers in this vicinity have been using pine 

 sawdust from the saw-mills for bedding for their stock. Does 

 it injure the manure, is a question that I should like to see set- 

 tled by a course of well-conducted experiments. Last February 

 I spread about ten bushels of sawdust, that had been partially 

 dried, on the floor of my sheep-pen, then covered it well with 

 hay, so that the manure would not mix with it ; the sheep were 

 kept upon it till the last of April, when it was well saturated 

 with urine ; this was mixed with some sawdust that had been 

 used in the stable, and well wet with the urine from the horses. 

 I planted pease upon it ; they came up, but did not grow much. 

 By digging and examining them, I found the rootlets avoided 

 tlie sawdust, and got their nourishment from the soil beyond it. 

 The first week in May I planted a field of potatoes ; part of it 

 being manured at the rate of six cords of manure to the acre, 

 which was a compost made by mixing three cords of barn cellar 

 manure with three cords of meadow muck. This was put in 

 the drills on part of the field, and by the side of it I applied 

 Croasdale's Superphosphate at the rate of four hundred pounds 

 per acre. The same kind of seed was used, (the sebec) those on 

 the manure yielding at the rate of 256 bushels to the acre, and 

 the phosphate giving at the rate of one hundred and twenty- 

 two and one-half bushels per acre. Those on the phosphate 

 came up first, and were of a deep green color in June ; in July 

 they rusted. On one acre of the same field I spread six cords 

 of manure, of the same kind as the other, and harrowed it in. 

 It was then marked out in drills, three feet eight inches apart, 



