Wood. [Feb. 2, 
and swamp-muck conjointly, and the third with muck alone; the muck 
being applied as ordinary manure, and the ashes sprinkled upon the 
ploughed ground at the same time with the sowing of the wheat, and 
then harrowed in along with it. This was done early in the autumn of 
1870. Even during the same season, the eye could readily perceive the 
more luxuriant growth of the wheat where supplied with ashes, and a 
line of division between this portion of the lot, and that simply manured, 
was very obvious. But the point in question could not be decided until 
harvest time next year. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented me from 
being present at that time, and I had to depend for the result upon the 
report of my agent, in whom, however, I have great confidence. He re- 
ported that he gathered the wheat from small and perfectly equal por- 
tions of the two divisions, of which one had, and the other had not been 
ashed ; finding no such difference between the two ashed portions as to 
render it worth while to distinguish them. On separating and measuring 
the wheat, he found that the quantity from the ground where the ashes 
were used was about double that from the part which had been supplied 
with muck alone, and, in relation to general productiveness, was in the 
proportion of about 27 bushels to the acre, far exceeding the ordinary 
crop, which, though under peculiarly favorable circumstances, it may 
sometimes equal 20 bushels to the acre, does not often, according to my 
experience and observation, exceed 12 or 15 bushels. It should be men- 
tioned that the ground on which the experiment was made was of nearly 
equal quality throughout, and very poor. 
But I have to mention a fact connected with these proceedings, which 
goes still further than anything yet said to prove the efficacy of potash in 
the wheat culture. The common poke is a plant abounding in the salts 
of potassa, and, therefore, selects for its own growth new and rich soils, 
which have not yet been exhausted by cultivation. Upon the heaps of 
swamp muck, thrown up on the borders of cranberry meadows in the 
process of their preparation, the poke springs up very rapidly and cop- 
iously, so as in a short time to completely cover the heaps; and the eye 
at once recognizes a muck bed by this luxuriant covering. By gather- 
ing and burning this copious crop, we obtained a quantity of ashes re- 
markably rich in potassa, containing at least 45 parts of the alkali in 1000 
of the ashes, and therefore very nearly equaling in this respect the grow- 
ing wheat. To test the quality of some ashes thus obtained, we substi- 
tuted it for the common wood ashes in a small space of that division of 
the ground which was treated with this material. Within this small 
space the wheat grew most luxuriantly, with stems higher and stronger, 
and heads longer and fuller than those of the plant in other parts of 
the lot; and, when the crop was gathered, the produce was found to 
be in the proportion of thirty-eight bushels to the acre, exceeding by 
more than one-third that obtained under ordinary wood-ashes. As 
the proportion of the alkali in the two kinds of ashes used was the 
only point in which they materially differed, the necessary inference 
is that the difference in the amount of product was owing exclusively to 
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