174 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



through. You would hardly know there were any cows 

 in the barn, and yet there are twelve or fifteen on that 

 floor. This earth, after it is put in, continues to dry until it 

 gets quite dry, so much so that if there is a knot hole or crev- 

 ice in a board it will sift out by a little jarring. In that way 

 the urine is absorbed and the ammonia fixed and retained. 



There is but little or no escape of the ammonia, which 

 would otherwise go off by fermentation in such a cellar as 

 mine, where it does not freeze. The pigs underneath — some 

 half dozen or a dozen,depending upon the season — are con- 

 tinually working this over. They are fed there, their beds 

 are there, and they are in there continually. The windows 

 are quite large, and in the milder weatlier they are open, giv- 

 ing them plenty of light and air. Their beds are in one cor- 

 ner away from the cattle, made of straw and other material 

 that we throw in on purpose for them to have a dry place to 

 lie on. The pigs root over the manure and pack it down, 

 which is very important in keeping manure well. They pack 

 it down hard and tight, so that we are able to get twice the 

 quantity in there that we should if we had no pigs there. I 

 keep five horses and their manure also is thrown in among the 

 pigs, so that the horse and cattle manure and the absorbents 

 are all together, and in the spring of the year the pen is so 

 filled up that the backs of the pigs touch the joists above. 



Then my other sources for manure are green crops. I 

 have been long in the habit of plowing in rye for tobacco, and 

 although my neighbors laughed at the idea exceedingly, it 

 seems by the figures upon the blackboard that I have hit 

 upon the next best plant, if not the best, for that purpose. 

 As soon as the tobacco crop is off, I plow up the ground 

 lightly with a pair of horses, and sow about a bushel and a 

 quarter of rye to the acre. That comes up and gets a good 

 start before winter, and in the spring, when I want to plow 

 for tobacco, it is four or five inches high, depending greatly 

 upon the earliness of the season, etc. There is plenty of ma- 

 nure. We have what we call a smoothing iron ; it is made 

 of two-inch plank, five feet square, spiked with railroad spikes 

 on to joists, three inches by four. The end of it is made of 



