130 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



MANURES. 



WORCESTER NORTH. 



Statement of Joseph Upton, Jr. 



Wishing last spring to try an experiment to test the value 

 of guano compared with compost manure from my barn cellar, 

 I manured one acre of land in the following manner : on two- 

 thirds of the acre I spread twenty common ox-cart loads of com- 

 post manure from my barn cellar, and ploughed it in. On the 

 other one-third I sowed two hundred pounds of guano, broadcast, 

 and harrowed it in. I then planted the whole acre with corn, 

 putting a small handful of plaster and ashes into each hill, and 

 cultivating the whole alike. On the 10th day of October the 

 committee on grain examined that acre ; and, in their judgment, 

 there was but very little difference in the corn on the two 

 parts. They selected one square rod, the ears on which 

 weighed fifty and one-half pounds, and they gave me the sec- 

 ond premium. As near as I can calculate, the expense per acre, 

 manured as the above two-thirds were, would be about forty 

 dollars, and the cost per acre, manured as the one-third was, 

 with guano, about twenty-five dollars, showing a difference of 

 fifteen dollars per acre in the expense in favor of the guano. 



HAMPSHIRE. 



Essay by L. Wet her ell. 



Of all the numerous topics that concern the tillers of the 

 soil — those who have entered into partnership with Nature in 

 order to multiply and increase the products of the earth upon 

 which man and his various domestic animals are to subsist — 

 there is none, perhaps, that more intimately relates to their 

 prosperity and ultimate success as farmers and gardeners than 

 that which the executive committee of the Hampshire Agricul- 

 tural Society proposed in their last annual showbill for an 

 essay, to wit, " Compost Manures." 



Homer, who lived many hundred years before the Christian 



