370 WHAT MANURES TO APPLY. 



a top dressing of guano, or by urtificial manuring mixtures com- 

 posed of lunmoniu suits or nitrate of soda and sulpliate of lime. 

 Unfortunately the application of artitieiul manures to permanent 

 pasture is often disappointing in an economical point of view. 

 As a rule, no artificial manuring gives so favorable a return as 

 good farmyard manure, and I cannot help thinking that it 

 would be more i)rofitable for a farmer to apply the larger ])ortion 

 of his yard manure rather to his j)asture land than to the arable 

 land ; for there is no difficulty in growing roots and cereal crops 

 economically with artificial nuinures. " 



A few of our best Northern farmers, such as A. C. (Hidden, of 

 Michigan, think that a much greater bencHt would be derived 

 from manures by spreaditig them on the i)a8ture8 or meadows 

 that were intended for corn a year hence. 



A sod is the great basis for a corn crop, and the l)etter the sod 

 the better the crop of corn. 



In many portions of the Northern .States it is the custom to 

 use most of the manure for the corn crop, with occasionally a top 

 dressing for wheat. 



Joseph Harris, of Rochester, New York, says: ''The cheap- 

 est and best numure to apply to a permanent pasture is rich, 

 well-decomposed farmyard or stable numure, and if it is not rich 

 apply yOO lbs. of nitrate of soda per acre in addition." 



AVe will read from still another, J. Dixon, in Jour. Roy. Ag. 

 Soc, p. 204, 1858: ** I have no hesitation, after an extensive 

 experience, in pronouncing bones pre-eminent above all other 

 nuinures for the improvement of grass lands, when permanency 

 as well as cost are considered. I prefer them raw and ground 

 fine. On a high varied soil in England, within two years, the 

 value of the land was raised more than from 30 s. to 3 1. per 

 acre. " 



Hero are notes from a prize essay by C. Cadlo in Jour. Roy. 



