186 APPENDIX. [March, 



the foregoing experiments, without thinking of the importance of 

 leaving at least one row unwatered, that we might better ascertain the 

 true effect of this management, seeing the benefit to the parts thus 

 watered, in about a week after, treated the remainder in the same man- 

 ner. The ends of some of the rows, however, which did not receive 

 the watering, produced only very small onions, such as are usually 

 thrown away as worthless by cultivators of this crop. This fact leads 

 me to believe that if the onions had not been watered with the solu- 

 tion of geine, not a single bushel of a good size would have been 

 produced on the whole piece. At any rate it was peat, or geine ren- 

 dered soluble by alkali, that produced this large crop. 



The crop proved greater than our most sanguine expectations. 

 The onions were measured in the presence of the chairman of your 

 committee, and making ample allowance for the tops which had not 

 been stripped off, were adjudged equal to four bushels to the square 

 rod, or at the rate of 640 bushels to the acre. In these experiments, 

 7 lbs. of potash which cost 7 cts. a pound, bought at the retail price, 

 were used. Potash, although dearer than wood ashes, at 12^ cents 

 per bushel, is, I think, cheaper than the white ash mentioned by Dr. 

 Dana, and sufficiently cheap to make with meadow mud a far cheaper 

 manure than such as is in general used among our farmers. The ex- 

 periment satisfies me that nothing better than potash and peat can be 

 used for most, if not all our cultivated vegetables, and the economy of 

 watering with a solution of geine, such as are cultivated in rows, I 

 think cannot be doubted. The reason why the corn was not very 

 obviously benefited, I think must have been that the portion of the 

 roots to which it was applied, was already fully supplied with nutri- 

 ment out of the same kind from the peat ashes and manure put in the 

 hill at planting. For watering rows of onions or other vegetables, I 

 should recommend that a cask be mounted on light wheels, so set that 

 like the drill they may run each side of the row, and drop the liquid 

 manure through a small tap hole or tube from the cask, directly upon 

 the young plants. For preparing the liquor, I should recommend a 

 cistern about three feet deep, and as large as the object may require, 

 formed of plank, and laid on a bed of clay, and surrounded by the 

 same, in the manner that tan vats are constructed ; this should occupy 

 a warm place, exposed to the sun, near water, and as near as the.se 

 requisites permit, to the tillage lands of the farm. In such a cistern, 

 in warm weather, a solution of geine may be made in large quantities 

 with little labor and without the expense of fuel, as the heat of the 



