ON MANURES, &C. 37 



out being well manured, with corn and potatoes. 

 Gentlemen, you have seen the crop growing and 

 matured, and I leave it to you to say whether or 

 not the crop on this land would have been bet- 

 ter had it been dressed with an equal quantity 

 of pure, well rotted barn manure. For my own 

 part I believe it would not, but that this experiment 

 proves that peat mud thus managed, is equal if not 

 superior to the same quantity of any other substance 

 in common use as a manure among us ; which, if it 

 be a fact, is a fact of immense value to the farmers 

 of New England. By the knowledge and use of it, 

 our comparatively barren &oils may be made to equal 

 or excel in productiveness the virgin prairies of the 

 West. There were many hills in which the corn 

 first planted was destroyed by worms. A part of 

 these were supplied with the small Canada corn, a 

 part with beans. The whole was several times cut 

 down by frost. The produce was three hundred 

 bushels of ears of sound corn, two tons of pumpkins 

 and squashes, and some potatoes and beans. Dr. 

 Dana, in his letter to Mr. Colman, dated Lowell, 

 March 6, 1839, suggests the trial of a solution of 

 geine as a manure. His directions for preparing it 

 are as follows : " Boil one hundred pounds of dry 

 pulverized peat with two and a half pounds of white 

 ash, (an article imported from England,) containing 

 36 to 55 per cent, of pure soda, or its equivalent 

 in pearlash or potash, in a potash kettle, with 130 gal- 

 lons of water ; boil for a few hours, let it settle, and 

 dip off the clear liquor for use. Add the same quan- 

 tity of alkali and water, boil and dip off as before. 



