360 Transactions of tee American Institute. 



dollars per acre rent and fifteen dollars in labor are the regular figures ; 

 an acre must yield thirty dollars worth before it begins to return a 

 farthing of profit, to say nothing of bought fertilizers. To illustrate 

 the amazing difference in the stocking of our farms compared with 

 theirs, take New York State. In natural capacity, I think the ave- 

 rage of your lands is equal to that of England. She has 50,000,000 

 square miles ; New York, 47,000,000 ; she keeps 35,000,000 sheep, 

 and New York something over 2,000,000 ; she has fifteen sheep, feed- 

 ing and fertilizing her surface, where we have one. 



The pride of the best English farmers is not in speaking of their 

 exhaustive crops ; they do not speak of 1,000 bushels of wheat, but 

 of so many tons of meat. The average product of meat is 138 

 pounds a year to the acre. Holland is a little above this ; but Flan- 

 ders, a country renowned for model farming, reports but ninety-eight 

 pounds per acre. 



Mr. J. B. Lyman — You speak of so much labor per acre ; what 

 did you learn to be the average wages per day or week paid the farm 

 hands ? 



Prof. Cook — Two shillings a day is about the lowest earned in 

 harvest and ten shillings the highest. Fifty cents a day, or $3.50 a 

 week, the laborer boarding himself, is the earning of the greatest 

 number in the driving season, and half a pound a week — ten dollars 

 a month — in dull times. 



A word about fertilizers. They have been through the same mill 

 that is grinding us now in the matter of bought manures. They 

 have been swindled so often that many of the larger farmers, as Mr. 

 Leeds for instance, buy their bones and have an interest in a bone 

 mill. Then they can be sure that they are not buying dirt or plaster 

 at £7 or £8 a ton. 



Mr. J. B. Lyman — On what crops do they mainly apply their bone 

 and phosphate ? 



Prof. Cook — Chiefly on roots. 



I found one remarkable fact about the application of the manures 

 rich in ammonia to black, peaty lands. They have a great many 

 drained fens, where the soil is black to the depth of several feet. 

 Ammoniacal manures do no good on such lands. But mineral 

 manures, as the phosphates, work wonders. The reason is this. 

 Peat and muck are very rich in the elements of ammonia, more so 

 than the average of yard manure. The different forms of lime do 

 such lands most good. I wish I had time to-day to speak fully of all 

 I saw at Mr. Lawes'. He and Dr. Gilbert are the oldest, the most 



