RECLAIMING LAND. 141 



phosphate. I think last spring it was Bradley's ; I used the 

 year before, with the same result, Bowker's. I don't think 

 there is much difference in those two articles, and I presume 

 there are others just as good. I should not try either of 

 them if I could get the crude material. I have called that 

 hay worth $12 a ton standing. If it is cut, there is the 

 labor to be added. I get $18 to $24 a ton for hay in the 

 winter ; $6 a ton will pay for harvesting. If I called 

 that crop $18 a ton, I would have to deduct the expense 

 for labor. But calling it worth $12 a ton as it stood there 

 on the ground, that would make the improvements on that 

 land stand me in to-day $82.20. The other pieces that have 

 been treated in the same way for the last three or four 

 years have produced two and a half tons to the acre for the 

 first crop, and a heavy second crop afterwards. I want you 

 to believe me when I tell you that, because it is so. Those 

 pieces have been run with fertilizers from the beginning. 

 No loam has been put upon that land, — nothing but sand, 

 and fertilizers added. I think it will continue as productive 

 for some time to come. I don't know but some of you have 

 seen that land and know the condition of it. 



Mr. BoAVDiTCH. Do you put fertilizers on every year? 



Captain Moore. I put on eight hundred pounds every 

 year. 



Mr. BowDiTCH. Do you use phosphate every year ? 



Captain Moore. I have on that land, but on my other 

 grass land I have used bone, ashes and muriate of potash as 

 a top-dressing, and I do not consider compost manure an 

 economical dressing, as it costs too much. I raise a few 

 crops, and I raise them as specialties ; and grass is one of 

 the specialties. I think that where there are failures in 

 specialties, they come from the bad judgment of the farmer 

 who undertakes to raise on his land a crop not adapted to 

 his soil. I say that the failures in specialties come from 

 a lack of judgment, whereas the man who adopts anything 

 as a specialty is obliged, from the magnitude of what he is 

 doing, to do it in the best way, and to know all about it ; 

 and you cannot do that where you follow a system of gen- 

 eral farming. 



Question. What seed do you use ? 



