No. 199.] 473 



hay, then the cattle like it and thrive upon it. I have seen hogs well 

 . fatted by feeding and rooting in the prairies, where also they root up 

 our native wild potatoes and eat them. 



Mr. Pell. — I like what Mr. Bowman has said about charcoal. I 

 have tried the experiment of growing grain in pure charcoal, and suc- 

 ceeded. I have put forty bushels of charcoal upon an acre. A spot 

 where the wagon, which had brought the charcoal, had stood, proved 

 remarkably fertile. I measured the clean wheat from that spot, and 

 found it had yielded at the rate of seventy-eight bushels to the acre. 

 I harvested it while the grain was yet so soft that with my finger and 

 thumb I could readily press out of the grain the gluten. That crop 

 brought me an extra price ; it was the finest wheat to be seen any 

 where in my neighborhood. I have used charcoal very largely upon 

 my land. It has the property of attracting oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen 

 and ammonia, and keep it to supply plants. I have tried salt on the 

 Canada thistle root where the tops had been cut off, and it readily 

 destroyed the whole. 



W. Bowman. — I plough deep and often, first with my plough down 

 to the beam, then with my sub-soil plough until I have a depth of 

 eighteen inches^ and I cross plough to the same depth. I got forty- 

 five bushels of wheat off an acre, and the grain weighed sixty-four 

 and a half pounds to the bushel. I used some lime, and some ashes, 

 some saw diist of bones and charcoal dust in the making of my com- 

 post. Charcoal put on the barn floor to mix with the dung and 

 urine, very soon di-y rots the floor ; oak is too hard for the floor ; hem- 

 lock is best for cattle and horses. 



Mr. Bowman. — On my farm in Monroe County, I have ploughed 

 a field of muck, deep ; sowed one hundred bushels of quick lime on it 

 per acre, one bushel of fine salt ; 1 harrowed and cross-harrowed it eight 

 times; I then put in potatoes, carrots and parsnips. That field gave 

 me four hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes the acre. Eight hun- 

 dred bushels of the largest carrots I ever saw, the acre. The salt 

 saved me much trouble from we^ds. 



