STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 173 



Besides, I have reread with an entirely impersonal interest 

 your reply to "S. G. " and have found it in that sense a 

 remarkable, neat bit of professional exposition. 



N. B. Why don't some of you Conn, folk send us the 

 "State Reports" of that ilk? We have nothing since 1869, 

 if my memory serves me aright, — I thought it "rough" that 

 I should first see (or hear of) your article on leached ashes, 

 in the N. Y. Druggists' Circular. 



In October, Professor Storer wrote commenting with 

 approval upon some of Professor Johnson's contribu- 

 tions to the Tribune. As these articles often found 

 their occasion in erroneous statements mdely believed 

 and repeated by many writers for the agricultural 

 press, they were at times unavoidably controversial in 

 tone. 



Jamaica Plain, Mass., 20 Oct. 1874. 



Dear Johnson, — It occurs to me that if I don't send my 

 benediction soon there will be small sense in speaking at all. 



I was curious to see if anyone would catch the point of H's 

 discourse. The blunder was so stupendous that I was forced 

 to study my own skreed before I could believe my eyes. The 

 thing hit me instantly, of course, because repeated observation 



(during the three years) has enforced the lesson that W 's 



Superphosphate was very poor stuff. But I had doubt whether 

 others would notice the pit which H. had dug for himself. I 

 said, — for my own part — "Give a rogr»e a rope!" — 'Tis a 

 crying shame that I can never have a talk with you ! Yours 

 sincerely, P. H. Storer. 



Other letters which passed between the friends dis- 

 cussed various topics, agricultural and professional. 

 At the time these were written only a tentative begin- 

 ning had been made in the study of the basic problems 

 of animal nutrition ; crude and unscientific notions on 



