NO NEW THING. 169 



a hand in it. I know I had a finger in it, too, and a reason- 

 ably ugly fight on it in the Legislature. I say that, under 

 the effects of the law, and the light that has been thrown upon 

 the subject by Professor Stockbridge, Professor Goessmann, 

 and others, these fertilizers have become much better articles, 

 and more reliable thau before ; and the effect of attention 

 having been drawn to them has been not only to create a 

 marked improvement in the quality, but also a reduction in 

 the price, and that, together with Professor Goessmann's 

 experiments of last year and the year before, published to the 

 world, enables farmers to go into the market and buy the 

 cheapest fertilizers, no matter whether they are what are 

 termed the Stockbridge fertilizers, or any other fertilizers. 



That is what you want to know. If you can buy a fertilizer 

 that is better aud cheaper than the Stockbridge fertilizer, you 

 want to try it. The Professor agrees to that, undoubtedly. 

 He cares nothing about what you buy ; he only wants you to 

 buy the best. 



Now, let me say, further than that, that the Stockbridge 

 fertilizers, as they are called, are substantially the same things 

 which I, certainly, had used before, and I presume many 

 others had ; not, perhaps, in precisely the same proportions. 

 Professor Stockbridge does not claim that any of the articles 

 are new, but simply the combinations, as I understand it. 

 But Professor Stockbridge, in bringing this matter forward, 

 has certainly done a great deal of good, and is entitled to the 

 credit of it. 



The Professor has given you to understand, that in seasons 

 like this, when there is a drought, you had better rely upon 

 chemical fertilizers, than raw, barn-yard manure. Now, I 

 simply wish to say, that that corn which I have in the hall, — 

 you know what it is, for you have seen it, most of you, — was 

 grown on raw barn-yard manure. As near as I can judge, 

 thirty-one horse-cart loads (almost five loads to the cord) 

 were applied to the acre, on poor sandy soil, on the top of a 

 hill back of my house. I cannot tell what the rainfall was, 

 but it was very small. It has never been estimated and put 

 down in inches to my knowledge. If on the college farm 

 they have allowed a piece of low mucky land, or any other 

 land, to suffer very much from drought, it seems to me it was 



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