HOMOEOPATHY IN AGRICULTURE. 219 



that are necessary in a hoop that will sell in the market is 

 that it must be of such a character that it will not slip on 

 the barrel easily. I doubt if the basket willow would 

 answer that purpose. For boxes, where the bands are 

 nailed on, I suppose it would answer. 



Mr. Hersey. I do not stand in this hall or anywhere 

 else and speak of things I know nothing about. When I 

 speak of the basket willow as adapted to making hoop poles 

 and box binders I speak of what I know. 



Secretary Russell. Does it make a good hoop ? That 

 is the question. 



Mr, Hersey. Yes, sir, it makes a good hoop. I speak 

 of what I know, not what I guess at. 



Mr. Burgess. I would like to ask the lecturer one ques- 

 tion. I observed that he recommended one thousand pounds 

 l)er acre for a field of corn. Suppose that the land raises 

 fifty bushels of corn per acre, I would like to ask the gentle- 

 man whether, in his judgment, the same amount of fertilizer 

 will raise the same amount of corn on the same land another 

 year, or whether we have got to impoverish our land to feed 

 in part the corn crop ? 



Mr. BowKER. Back of that question is another. A 

 thousand pounds of a fertilizer such as I described would 

 give eighty pounds of nitrogen, one hundred and twenty 

 pounds of phosphoric acid and eighty pounds of potash. 

 Now, the Stockbridge formula for fifty bushels of corn to the 

 acre calls for sixty-four pounds of nitrogen, seventy-seven 

 pounds of potash and only thirty-one pounds of phosphoric 

 acid ; so that this thousand pounds that I have spoken of will 

 furnish plant food for more than fifty bushels of corn ; that 

 is, of the three leading ingredients. But I believe in rotation 

 of crops. I do not think it is advisable to plant corn, or any 

 crop, with fertilizers or without fertilizers, continuously on 

 the same soil. 



Mr. Burgess. Then it would be evident to my mind, 

 and probably to every mind, that this fertilizer does not 

 feed the crop entirely. Now, I am satisfied, being an old- 

 fashioned farmer, to use barnyard manure wholly. It may 

 bo that we cannot raise a corn crop year after year on one 

 piece of land with the use of barnyard manure, but if we 



