220 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



he thought that he could get 50 per cent, more 

 crops by manuring with well rotted and pulver- 

 ized compost than with green manure, and he 

 thought it would be well for farmers to think of 

 this. He thought ashes and other fertilizers of a 

 similar description were good for top-dressing, as 

 was also gypsum, but there was nothing that he 

 was aware of that was so valuable to the farmer as 

 the manures produced on his own farm. 



Mr. Stoughton, of Gill, differed with Dr. Lor- 

 irg in regard to the application of green manures 

 to grass in spring, and said that he had been led 

 to do so from practical results. He stated that he 

 had got five tons of fine hay per acre from his 

 land by manuring with green manure, while he had 

 manured a portion with a compost he had pre- 

 pared from the compost of an old pig pen mixed 

 with manure and put it on thick in the spring, and 

 the result was, he did not see any difi'erence be- 

 tween the crop from that and a portion that had 

 not been manured; while that he had manured 

 \<'ith green manure gave two tons per acre in a 

 bad season. He said he did not see the gain in 

 carting muck to the barn-yard and then back 

 again to the field, unless it was valuable as a man- 

 ure in itself, without it was to dry it, and so have 

 it absorb the liquids that would otherwise run 

 away. He thought plaster and ashes of great ser- 

 vice, and he considered the former returned 25 

 per cent, profit on the money paid for it, but he 

 had found nothing to pay so well as gathering all 

 the vegetable matter about his farm, using clean, 

 dry oak and maple leaves for bedding for his cat- 

 tle and swine, and thus converting it into man- 

 ure. He alluded to a neighbor of his, who, the 

 past season, made 150 to 200 loads of good man- 

 ure by keeping pigs, and from the sale of his 

 pork and shoats he had cleared $60 more for them 

 than they cost, and this he reckoned would pay 

 for their feed, thus leaving the manure clear profit. 

 He said he used from 20 to 25 loads of green 

 manure to the acre for grass land. He had used 

 guano, 400 lbs. to the acre, and plowed it in, and 

 it did well in a plain, sandy soil, and he sowed 

 the same piece with rye, and got a good crop, 

 but the next year he again sowed with rye, and he 

 never had so poor a crop, and from this he con- 

 sidered guano was not a profitable fertilizer to 

 him. 



Dr. LOKING said he thought the last speaker 

 forgot the fact that muck was vegetable matter, 

 judging from his remarks in regard to it, yet he 

 admitted that he had never made the experiment 

 as to whether it would act as a fertilizer alone. 

 He used it as an absorbent, and to prevent the 

 manure from heating. He would like to see any 

 man spread a load of green manure, and thought 

 from the almost impossibility of doing this, that 

 the manure used by Mr. Stoughton had been par- 



tially decomposed. He contended that there were 

 gases and other fertilizing properties formed and 

 retained by using the manure thoroughly rotted, 

 which were not obtained by using it in a green 

 state. 



Mr. Stoughton replied, that he used manure 

 wholly unrotted, and he thought that a large pro- 

 portion of the muck used had been so far rotted 

 that all the fertilizing properties had been taken 

 out of it. 



Mr. Fay, of Lynn, said he thought the question 

 to be decided was the economy in using manures, 

 and not the effect. He agreed with Mr. Stough- 

 ton as to the good effect of the applicatian of 

 green manures, but he thought the majority of 

 farmers would prefer them a year old, if they could 

 get them. He thought the properties of manures 

 were more difficult to lose than is generally sup- 

 posed. He said he had tried green manure for 

 top-dressing in the spring, and by its side the 

 composted manure, and he saw very little differ- 

 ence in the crops, but mowing and raking the 

 land thus manured showed a considerable differ- 

 ence, as the former would cost to mow something 

 like $1,50 per acre, while the latter by machinery, 

 would not cost more than 25 cents. Sheep ma- 

 nure had been spoken of by Mr. Stoughton, but 

 this, ]Mr. Fay said, could not be composted. He 

 thought there were scarcely two muck bottoms in 

 the State alike, and while some were valueless, 

 others Avere exceedingly valuable. He had a great 

 quantity on his farm, but it was worth nothing, 

 while that of Dr. Loring might be excellent. 



The article of bones was then considered, and 

 the speaker said it was a disgrace to the farmers 

 of Massachusetts, that so many thousand tons 

 were exported from Boston to enrich the fields of 

 England. For the turnip crop, particularly, this 

 was excellent, and it was precisely known how 

 much such crop required to reach the highest state 

 of productiveness, viz. : 16 bushels to the acre, 

 and it had been fidly demonsh-ated that even 25 

 or 50 bushels would produce no more, and this 

 was proved to be the very best manure for this 

 crop. Phosphates, he said, may be used as stim- 

 ulants, but barn-yard manure was the foundation 

 of all fertilizers. 



Mr. Wethekell, of Boston, spoke of English 

 opinions of the relative^merits of green and com- 

 posted manures, showing that the green was pre- 

 ferred. He also alluded to other fertilizers not 

 named by other speakers, as also to the experi- 

 ments made in England in raising crops without 

 manure by constantly turning the soil, thus en- 

 abling it to al)sorb the nutritive properties in the 

 ail", and the success that had thus far attended 

 tliis method. 



Col. Heard, of Wayland, said, in his neighbor- 

 hood it was the custom to ai)ply the manure in 



