LASTING EFFECT OF CHEMICALS. 153 



Now, I desire to draw a fair and just conclusion from these 

 experiments last reported, and it is this : I honestly believe 

 they sustain the previously expressed opinion that lands could 

 be manured with chemicals, and improved year by year. The 

 question that the farmer asks is, "Will not the eiFect of the 

 chemicals be exhausted in the first year of application?" 

 These experiments show that the effect of the chemicals lasted 

 at least three years. They increased the crop three years. 

 Remember, gentlemen, that is not the way you farm lands. 

 You do not grow corn year after year on the same land. But 

 that is the way we tried it, and the result proves conclusively 

 that the effect of the chemicals, in the ordinary way of farming, 

 reaches over to successive years, and that we should be justi- 

 fied in taking up poor lands, planting corn with chemicals, 

 and seeding down, as we ordinarily do, and that we shall find 

 the effect of the manure in the after grass crops. I say, I 

 think the result of these experiments last detailed shows con- 

 clusively that we may use chemicals as we do barn-yard manure, 

 and that we shall not be disappointed in the results. 



Now, do not understand me as saying that the effect of 

 chemicals in subsequent years will be as good as that of barn- 

 yard manure. I am not going to say anything about that. 

 I say, absolutely, that with chemicals used on lands, cropped 

 in the ordinary way, we found a very satisfactory result in 

 the grass crop the third year succeeding. I think the result 

 of the experiment justifies me in drawing that conclusion. 



Question. If our barn-yard manure was as finely pulver- 

 ized as the chemicals, would it be likely to last any longer 

 than the chemicals? 



Prof. Stockbridge. If you will bring barn-yard manure 

 into the absolute condition of plant-food, then they are alike. 

 The trouble is, that barn-yard manure will not, in one, two 

 or three years, get into that condition, in the ordinary way of 

 treating it. 



Now, gentlemen, after all that has been said about these 

 little experiments at the Agricultural College, the great 

 experiments of this year have not been tried on the Agricult- 

 ural College farm. The great experiments with chemical 

 fertilizers, this year, have been tried all over this wide land, 

 on more than a thousand farms, under all possible circum- 



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