598 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ridges where the water will not stand, the crop will rot less than 

 in wet ground. The theory is that warm rains and a scalding 

 sun produce the rot more than any other one cause, and this 

 seems to be the opinion of The Ohio Farmer, although he says 

 every theory and every preventive of the disease, if successful 

 one year fails the next. Yet I am full of faith that judicious 

 cultivation will do much toward giving us this crop free from the 

 malady that has so long made potato raising unprofitable. 



The regular subject of the day being called up, viz : The 

 most economical manner of renovating worn out soils. 



Solon Robinson — I did not present it because I had any theory 

 to advance, but because I had received the following letter from 

 Charles S. Wood, a farmer of Penobscot county, Maine. He 

 writes as follows : 



I see, in a report of the Farmers' Club, a statement by you 

 that clover seed is the cheapest manure. Now, I have twenty 

 acres of light loam and sandy soil, which I think of manuring, 

 either with clover seed, or " Indian wheat," or buckwheat. 

 Clover seed is worth here: northern, fourteen cents; southern 

 twelve cents per lb.; Indian and buckwheat, seventy-five cents 

 per bushel. Is not the wheat the cheapest if half a bushel will 

 seed an acre? And will not the buckwheat make the quickest and 

 rankest growth for the purpose of manure 1 Say this before the Club, 

 and let us know the result; for we are much interested in the 

 Institute reports away down here, and they are the first articles 

 sought after in The Tribune. Your grindstone disquisition is 

 indorsed here by all to whom it is read. 



Mr. Robinson continued — Now I do not wish to be understood 

 as recommending clover seed to be used as a manure, though I 

 have no doubt it would be a good fertilizer, and so would wheat 

 or corn. And I speak advisedly when I say that wheat bran is 

 worth as. much per ton as Peruvian guano, as a fertilizer, of 

 almost any crop. Eut I said, and say again, that clover seed is 

 a cheap manure if sown with all small grain, and suffered to 

 grow and ripen and be plowed under. And I do think that the 

 best method of renovating worn out soils, particularly such as 

 the writer of that letter describes, is to apply something that will 



