PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 517 



indicates pretty clearly the estimation in which this substance 

 is held, as a fertilizer, by some nations. Poudrette, properly 

 prepared, will have a similar effect ; as will also some other 

 manures, as that prepared by combining muck with corn and 

 cob-meal, in the proportion of five or six bushels of the former 

 to one of the latter, and saturating and fermenting the mix- 

 ture* with urine.' The quality of this fertilizer may be im- 

 proved, perhaps, by the substitution, for muck, of fine dray, 

 stable manure, whether made from hay, grain and litter, or 

 from hay and litter only. Yet however this may be, my ex- 

 perience enables me to state that a manure, identical in com- 

 position with what this last would be, such substitution having 

 been made, and with the exception of corn and cob-meal, none 

 of that having been added, was drilled, in small quantity, with 

 the seed, the past season, on a soil where fine compost had 

 been spread and harrowed in, at the rate of fifteen or sixteen 

 ox-cart loads to the acre, with marked success. It was not 

 long necessary, I would remark, after the blade appeared, to 

 recur, in this case, to monuments, in order to ascertain the local 

 limits of the experiment. That part of the field to which the 

 application had been made, soon became clearly defined ; the 

 crop there, although occupying the larger portion of the most 

 unfavorable soil, exhibiting a deeper shade of color, and being 

 marked by a more rapid and vigorous growth than that on the 

 residue of the piece. It also attained an earlier maturity than 

 the latter. Similar comparative results I have uniformly found 

 to follow similar applications of such manures. 



A part of another field devoted to the culture of Indian corn, 

 the past season, received a somewhat heavier dressing than the 

 former of compost, which was spread, broadcast, in a finely 

 divided state, and carefully wrought into the surface soil by 

 means of the harrow and bush. Here, too, was drilled with 

 the seed a fertilizer similarly constituted with that last men- 

 tioned. Of this more was added to a few hills just before the 

 second hoeing ; and to an equal number, in an adjoining row, 

 was applied, at the same time, a small quantity of guano. 

 With reference to these, neither appeared to have any advan- 



* If in a moist state when used, soil should be drawn over it with the foot or a hoe 

 upon which the kernels should be dropped. 



