190 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



immediate and its operation quickly over. It is mostly expended 

 the first season. But it has not acted alone. It has stimulated 

 the plants to search for and take up the fertilizing substances in 

 the soil, so that each year of its application the land has become 

 poorer. Its effect, when applied alone, except for the present 

 crop, is positively pernicious, and the result of its continued 

 use, alone, must be the exhaustion of the soil. 



Artificial manures, also, have been recently used to a consid- 

 erable extent ; but if any one expects to see good results from 

 the use of the best of them alone, he will be grievously disap- 

 pointed. None of them contain all the food which is necessary 

 for the growth of vegetation, and it requires a scientific knowl- 

 edge which few farmers possess, to understand where and how 

 to apply them to any considerable advantage. This may be said 

 of the bct^t of artificial manures. But there are many that are 

 largely advertised and recommended, which are not much, if 

 any belter than common wood scrapings; and even if a farmer 

 thinks he has sufficient scientific knowledge to properly use 

 artificial manures, he must add to his fund of information a 

 knowledge of chemical analysis, or purchase his special manures 

 of dealers upon whose knowledge and integrity he can implicitly 

 rely. 



"William D. Northend, Chairman. 



HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN AND HAMPDEN. 



Statement of Horace I. Hodges. 

 In April, 1857, I selected seven half acre lots, on the Hamp- 

 shire, Franklin and Hampden Agricultural Society's grounds, at 

 Northampton, and staked them off on the north-easterly side of 

 said grounds ; each lot was of precisely the same quality of soil, 

 and in the same condition, — all down to grass, — Timothy, 

 red and white clover. That year, six lots I gave a top-dressing, 

 each with a different fertilizer, leaving one lot without any. 

 Each lot has been mowed at the same time, and managed alike, 

 and the hay upon each weighed separately, for 1857 and 1858, 

 and the tables at the close of this communication present a full 

 and accurate statement of the experiments upon these lots. 



