ON EXPERIMENTS ON MANURES. 105 



one hundred and twenty baskets of corn ears, and a 

 full proportion of the pumpkins. On one eighth of 

 an acre of Thorburn's tree corn treated in the same 

 manner as the rest, the produce was nineteen bask- 

 ets. A basket of this- corn shells, out seventeen 

 quarts, one quart more than a basket of the ordinary 

 kinds of corn. The meal for bread and puddings is 

 of a superior quality. Could we depend upon its 

 ripening, for, Thorburn's assertions to the contrary 

 notwithstanding, it is a late variety of corn, (though 

 it ripened perfectly with us last season, a rather 

 unusually warm and long one,) farmers would do 

 well to cultivate it more extensively than any other 

 kind. 



The use of dry ashes on our black soil grass 

 lands, showed an increased benefit from last year.. 

 But our experiments with liquid manure disappointed 

 us. Either from its not being of the requisite 

 strength, or from the dryness of the season, or from 

 our mistaking the effects of it last year, or from all 

 these causes combined, the results confidently anti- 

 cipated, were not realized; and from our experiments 

 this year we have nothing to say in favor of its use,, 

 although we think it worthy of further experiments. 

 On the first view of the subject, a dry season or a 

 dry time might seem more favorable to the manifes- 

 tations of benefit from watering plants with liquid 

 manure, than wet seasons or times. But when we' 

 consider that when the surface of the earth is dry, 

 the small quantity of liquid used would be arrested 

 by the absorbing earth ere it reached the roots, and 

 perhaps its fertilizing qualities changed, evaporated, 

 or otherwise destroyed, by the greater heat to which 

 at such times it must be exposed — it is not, I think,, 

 improbable that the different effects noticed in our 

 experiments with this substance, the two past years, 

 might be owing to this cause. It is my intention, 

 should sufficient leisure permit, to analyse the soil 

 cultivated and the mud used, and prepare a short 

 essay on the subject of peat mud, muck, sand, &c., 

 14 



