154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



stances of diversity of soil and climate, drought and rain. A 

 year ago, come winter, it having become perfectly apparent, 

 that although the formulas from which these materials were 

 prepared were in the hands of all the farmers of the Com- 

 monwealth, and they could buy the materials and mix their 

 own fertilizers and try them to their heart's content, yet 

 various parties were about to engage in the business of man- 

 ufacturing and selling these fertilizers, the right to manufacture 

 and sell them was secured, as a guard against fraud, deception 

 and cupidity, and the right to manufacture was put into the 

 hands of a firm in Boston. It was put into their hands, first, 

 because they were supposed to be very intelligent; second, 

 because they were supposed to be perfectly honest ; and third, 

 because they were supposed, from long acquaintance, to have 

 a deep interest in agriculture and agricultural prosperity, 

 outside of any fertilizer or any commercial operation whatever. 

 Those gentlemen have informed me that they have sold the 

 fertilizers, this year, and that parties have bought the uncom- 

 pounded chemicals from various sources, to such an extent, 

 that I am justified in saying that more than four thousand 

 acres, this year, have been under experiment with chemical 

 fertilizers ; and that this use of chemical fertilizers has not 

 been localized here in Massachusetts, but they have been used 

 all over the country, from Maine to Louisiana, in almost if 

 not every State of the seaboard States of the Union. It is to 

 •these broad, open-field experiments, in the hands of all kinds 

 of men, intelligent and ignorant, — men who understood what 

 they were doing, and men who did not understand what they 

 were doing, — that I now call your attention in relation to the 

 results of the use of chemical fertilizers on the farm. 



There have been failures, undoubtedly ; there have been 

 wonderful successes ; but, on the whole, taking into account 

 the failures of all kinds and descriptions, and the successes 

 of all kinds and descriptions, I shall feel justified when I 

 have called your attention fully to these experiments, in 

 drawing some conclusions. But I desire to put the experiments 

 themselves before you, that you may, independently of me, 

 draw your own conclusions. 



The first experiment to which I call your attention, is an 

 experiment tried by the superintendent of the Agricultural 



