REPORT OF MR. FRANCIS H. APPLETON.
525
of Kolin with the farm of Carolinenhoff. The large cost of this connection is more than made up for by the great facilitation of farming operations, by which the yield is increased and insured.
To facilitate hauling at other points, a movable wooden tramway, 1,200 feet long, and provided with six tip-cars, is being made.
I pass now to the consideration of the results which I have brought about on the estate of Kolin, by my great outlays for improvements and farming generally.
As before mentioned, I had raised the yield on the seventeen estates under my control, taking an average of several years, 62 to 110 per cent., and their net returns in money, 84 to 236 per cent. Yet this very favorable result did not fully satisfy. I had applied the three mainsprings of agriculture,— labor, manure, and rotation of crops, especially the latter, in its strictest form. Yet the average return per acre, taking the whole area cultivated, was only 25f bushels of rye, after subtracting the seed, while the soil seemed capable of a much larger yield.
The cause, as it seemed to me, lay in the fact that there can never be enough manure produced on a farm to keep the whole cultivated area in full vigor, and thus to attain the greatest possible yield and profits. It was impossible, upon these estates, to supply the lacking amount by an artificial substitute, and thus increase the results produced by the rotation of crops. It was not until I became proprietor of the estate of Kolin, that I cared for the proper application of all three of the mainsprings of agriculture, being here first able to make thorough use of artificial manure.
In order to avoid the adulteration of the latter, which is frequent in trade, I resolved to erect an artificial manure-factory for my own use. After its completion, I made it, to some extent, a joint-stock enterprise, retaining for myself, however, a large proportion of the stock, and gave the smajl farmers an opportunity to procure the manure pure and cheap.
This factory was soon looked on with general favor, for I delivered its products on a year’s credit, thus giving the farmers an opportunity of convincing themselves of its value. They soon found its use indispensable.