MUCK: ITS VALUE AND USE. 129 



MUCK : ITS VALUE AND USE. 



By George E. Brackett, Belfast. 



With the cry coming up from all parts of our State, from 

 Kittery to Quoddy and Presque Isle, of the " running out " or 

 decrease of fertility in so many of our cultivated soils and 

 fields, it is every season becoming the paramount question, 

 what shall we do about it — with what material and how shall 

 we stop this deterioration and increase the producing capacity 

 of our acres. In other words, what is the cheapest and most 

 available means generally at hand to recuperate our failing 

 and worn out lands. 



We are all aware that barnyard manure will produce this 

 much desired result efl'ectually and permanently, but the facf 

 that we have not enough of it, ^nd cannot obtain enough for 

 our purpose, efi*ectually disposes of this point. So far as it 

 goes, all right, but what shall we do for the deficit? Let us 

 look into the subject a little, for it is one of vital importance 

 to the agfricultural well-being of our State. It means all 

 there is between thrifty paying crops and fat fertile»fields, 

 and future barren acres and starvation returns therefrom. 



For years it has been a pet theory, or rather a supposed to 

 be fixed fact, that nearly every farm in Maine possessed a 

 magazine of wealth for plant production and soil recuperation 

 in the innumerable deposits of muck which nature aided by 

 art has so generously "dumped" as it were, here and there 

 in the hollows and lowlands; and muck and its value, etc., 

 has been the theme of many an agricultural article and lec- 

 ture, and not a few times has this unctuous subject been dis- 

 cussed by this Board, until, notwithstanding occasionally 

 some daring innovator would strike a sturdy blow in opposi- 

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