348 I Assembly 



then scattered regularly over it, costing all told, ten dollars per 

 acre. One and a quarter bushels of Mediterranean wheat was 

 sown to the acre, about the first of November, and harrowed in. 

 JVo barn-yard, or other manure wasused. The yield was more than 

 twenty-nine bushels per acre, although the crop was badly har- 

 vested, and the field not subsequently raked. 



Doctor Stewart states, " the reason for using the bi-phosphate 

 of lime on a soil will be seen by the following careful analysis 

 of that soil. In my note book I made the following comment on 

 the occasion of my visit to the farm. 



Sample of soil from the farm of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson 

 yielding about half a peck of corn per acre : 



Sand and bases insoluble, 71 20 



Lime, ' . . . 00 30 



Magnesia, 00 40 



Manganese, 00 10 



Potash, 00 23 



Water and organic matter, 10 07 



Phosphoric acid, no appreciable trace, 00 00 



Iron and alumina, 17 70 



100 00 



I recommended to be added to this soil the purest preparation 

 of phosphoric acid that we can adapt to agricultural purposes. 

 The result has proved, that bones dissolved in oil of vitriol— in 

 other words, bi-phosphate of lime reduced to powder, with 

 slaked ashes, supplies the defect. 



It is demonstrated, that bones, lime, plaster and salt, are only 

 relatively good, and that even the best guano must fail, if applied 

 to soils that require some other substance, that the experience of 

 the m.ost intelligent and best farmer in the State, with regard to 

 the comparative value of bones and lime, is worthless, except he 

 can also prove that all farms are composed of the same propor- 

 tion of lime, phosphoric acid, &c. But the prejudice against 

 these doctrines is so strong, that personal abuse is frequently ful- 



