AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 159 



pay to dig up a small plot, three feet deep, and bury a course of stones a 

 foot deep at the bottom, mixing ten per cent of any kind of vegetable all 

 through the earth as it was thrown back. It would then be a good soil, 

 and one that would last forever, with fair treatment. 



Charles Merrill, of Maiden, Mass., writes as follows : 



" I have a garden for vegetables, say 12,000 superficial feet, on which I 

 have applied three cords of tanner's refuse of hair, fleshings, bones and 

 glue stock — perhaps, in all, three tuns of animal matter; also, 500 lbs. 

 ground bones, 60 bushels ashes, 150 lbs. Peruvian guano, 60 bushels char- 

 coal dust, and the excrements of a family of seven persons, with perhaps 

 four cords of stable manure. Now, this has been applied during the last 

 three years, and my garden is almost barren. The dwarf pear trees die ; 

 the currant bushes on the border follow after, and the vegetables are 

 stunted and valueless. What shall be done for its cure ? I have igno- 

 rantly filled the ground with a glut of nitrogenous manure, and want to 

 know how to neutralize this excess of ammonia or salts. Can I obtain 

 this by the salt and lime mixture ? and if so, how ? Can I restore the 

 land by carting on a layer of muck ? and how shall it be prepared ? Dr. 

 Dana, of the Muck Manual, advises carting off all the loam, and carting 

 on new in its place; but this cannot be done, aa loam. cannot be had for 

 money." 



Mr. Meigs. — On a stiff clay, I recommended .300 cart loads of pure sand, 

 well mixed in, that made a good garden out of a poor one. 



Mr. Fuller. — A man near me, in Brooklyn, dosed his garden to death in 

 a similar manner. His grape vines grew twenty feet in a season, but he 

 could get no fruit. His strawberries were all leaves and vines, but no 

 berries. A farmer who kept a lot of cows filled his land so full of their 

 manure that it was worthless. I advised him to apply lime, and it brought 

 it about again. 



Mr. Pell. — I am yet to see ground too rich. I once manured a piece till 

 I could grow nothing — from wheat to buckwheat. I then drained the land 

 and sowed oats and got sixty bushels, and since, without manure, got good 

 crops. There was a poison in the soil that killed the crops. Draining car- 

 ried off the poison. 



Prof. Nash. — I think that fifty loads of sand added to this Maiden gar- 

 den, and plowed shallow the first year, will eure the difiiculty. So will 

 planting corn a year or two, probably. I do not think the land in Maiden 

 absolutely needs drainage. 



Mr. Pell. — I have never seen a piece of land that would not be bene- 

 fited by draining. 



Dr. Trimble suggests plowing that land deeper than ever before. 



Mr. Van Houton. — I know a very fruitful apple tree in an old grave-yard, 

 while an orchard alongside fails. Another apple tree, manured by a hen- 

 roost, bears abundantly. A pear tree, excessively manured by night-soil, 

 is now full of fruit. So is a tree standing in the richest spot I have on my 

 farm, I take particular care of my trees, in enriching the land, and such 



