THE NEXT EXPERIMENT. 159 



dropped it in the hill, and planted the corn upon it. I had it 

 planted over again, and the corn had jnst started when the 

 drought came on, and it does not look as "if I should have much 

 corn." I saw him again this fall, and he told me he had con- 

 siderable corn, but the crop was so much less than he 

 expected that he would not measure it. He pronounced it a 

 failure, and so do I. 



The next experiment to which I call your attention, was tried 

 on a piece of land upon Montague Plain, which, on an average, 

 produces twelve bushels of corn to the acre, and about five 

 bushels of rye ; my idea being to make fifty or sixty bushels 

 of corn to the acre on that land. The man reports that he 

 applied it as directed, and that the first of July no mortal 

 man ever saw such a stand of corn on Montague Plain as there 

 was there ; but it had then begun to suffer by drought, and 

 although, the last of July., the tassel was developed, yet it 

 dried up and died so quick that it never developed any pollen 

 at all, and there was not an ear of corn on the field. Now, 

 you men who reason about fertilizers, about the modes of 

 applying them, etc., can learn a lesson in a certain direction by 

 the result of that experiment. An enormous mass of foliage 

 was developed, the ears were set, the tassel developed, and 

 then it died so quick that no pollen was developed, and there 

 was no corn ; while a piece of corn on exactly the same land, 

 within thirty rods of it, manured with ashes, did not thus dry 

 up, and yielded twelve bushels of corn to the acre. Let the 

 experiment stand as the record is made. 



The next experiment is one tried by Mr. John Turner of 

 Baltimore County, Md. He says that he purchased two for- 

 mulas for corn, two for oats, and two for Hungarian grass. 

 The fertilizers, he says, came too late, but he applied them 

 according to the directions, and, as a result, he had the best 

 two acres of corn, the best two acres of oats, and the best two 

 acres of Hungarian grass that ever grew in the State of Mary- 

 land. I am willing that should be taken down considerable, 

 because they have had good crops of corn and grass and oats 

 in Maryland before. But he was undoubtedly surprised at 

 the result of the experiment. The corn yielded eighty bushels 

 to the acre; the oats, sixty, and the Hungarian grass, three 

 tons, — there being six acres of the laud. 



