158 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Mnck is found in all conditions, from the black, well-rotted vegetable mat- 

 ter to the light-colored moss of inert vegetation. The well-rotted is doubt- 

 less of great value as a manure. Dr. Kedzie, in 1876, investigated its 

 manurial properties and I state briefly what he found: 



*' The black 'cheesy' muck well rotted contains valuable manurial ele- 

 ments. It has great affinity for nitrogen, has the property of drawing heat 

 to the land over which it is spread, increasing heat on clay nearly two- 

 degrees, and on sand nearly four degrees. In its natural state it is accom- 

 panied with an acid — humic acid — which acts to prevent the growth of 

 many plants. When used as a manure it is of most value when spread out 

 on the ground before the winter's frost. It is disintegrated by the frost 

 which adds much to its value as a m nure." 



Muck has a low specific heat, in other words, is heated up rapidly and is 

 cooled rapidly as compared with water. 



Thus Schubler found that when dry soil was heated to 145° and allowed, 

 to cool down to 70° the time of cooling was in proportion as follows : 



Lime sand 100 



Quartz 95.6 



Clay loam 71.8 



Heavy clay 68.4 



Muck 49.0 



Water 860.4 



That is dry muck will heat or cool about twice as fast as sand, one and' 

 one-half as fast as clay, and nearly eighteen times as fast as water, by same- 

 exposure to heat. 



Muck is usually considered a cold soil, but you see from the above investi- 

 gations, it is proved the warmest of all soils. It owes its bad reputation to- 

 the fact that as it naturally exists, it is almost constantly saturated with 

 water. Now water is the element that makes any soil slow to heat. If you 

 allow water to evaporate from your soil, the heat that otherwise would go to 

 nourish plants, will be absorbed and taken from the soil. The evaporation 

 of one inch only of water would deprive your soil of as much heat from each 

 acre as is due to the combustion of 14 tons of coal. If one foot in depth has 

 to be evaporated, the heat drawn from the soil would be the same as that 

 produced by the combustion of 168 tons of coal. Now as muck frequently 

 has more than one foot of water entangled in its particles, there is good 

 reason for its reputation of being cold. Any soil saturated with water for- 

 the same reason, is a cold soil, but muck has a peculiar property of absorb- 

 ing water like a sponge and to such a degree that it literally floats in water. 

 When full of water it is even slower to heat than water itself. 



The amount of water that will be absorbed and retained without dripping- 

 by 100 pounds of different soils is shown by following results from Schublerr: 



Water Per cent, of 



retained. evaporation in 



lbs. 4 hours. 



Quartz sand 25 88.4 



Limesand 29 75.9 



Claysoil 40 52.0 



Heavvclay... 61 349 



Muck 181 25.5 



Ctoarse Peat 377 to 519 



From this it is seen that muck absorbs a great amount of water and loses- 



