164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



throw your barn-yard manure away. Some meu have said, 

 that, because I recommend the use of chemicals, I do not 

 think it is best to save barn-yard manure. My opinion on that 

 matter is on record, and I do not feel inclined to change it. 

 Use barn-yard manure, because it is a waste product ; use the 

 waste of your slaughter-houses and manufactories, — use them 

 all, and then take the chemicals. Notwithstanding the failures 

 reported, notwithstanding the failures that are to be reported, — 

 for I doubt not there are gentlemen in this hall who have tried 

 these fertilizers this year and failed, and there are gentlemen 

 here who have tried them this year and succeeded, — notwith- 

 standing the failures, I say, I believe that you can use these 

 materials, and use them with success. 



Now, then, I will venture to make another prediction, — and 

 if any man desires to carp at chemicals, I wish him to put it 

 down and either test it himself or allow me to test it, — I 

 venture the prediction, that I can take chemicals thus pre- 

 pared, and I cau take these old, worn-out, exhausted, brush- 

 producing pastures of Massachusetts, and by proper manage- 

 ment, I cau bring those pastures back to their pristine fertility, 

 and make them produce the grass necessary to produce the 

 fine stock and fine milk of former years. We can never 

 do it with anything else. We cannot cart barn-yard mannre 

 on to those pastures. A large proportion of our hill lands 

 are to be depopulated unless something is done ; but if you 

 can with chemicals bring the pasture land of New England 

 back to its former state of fertility, you may keep your boys 

 on the farm, keep the farms on those hills, and keep the 

 birches off of them. There is nothing else that will do it. 

 But I venture the prediction, that with these chemicals, — I 

 do not say the Stockbridge fertilizers ; I do not care anything 

 about that, — I say that with these chemicals, properly pre- 

 pared, those fields can be made to produce grass as they did 

 in the days of our fathers. 



Having said this much, I feel authorized in saying something 

 more. What I am about to say is to the farmers I see before 

 me, and I desire to talk it straight to your understanding, as 

 I talk it straight into your ears. It is no part of my busi- 

 ness, gentlemen, as professor of agriculture at the Agricult- 

 ural College, to try experiments ; it is no part of the business 



