188 [Senate 



My farm has no hard-pan or retentive subsoil, and I therefore have 

 no need of the operation of the subsoil plow, nor have I tried the 

 experiment. In all close and hard bottoms, as a species of under- 

 standing, it is an invaluable process. 



Manures. 



6, 7, 8. I generally use about twenty loads of thirty bushels each 

 per acre of barn yard manure, piled up in the yard in the spring, 

 composed of the droppings of the animals, litterings of straw, and 

 black muck. I make about two hundred loads annually, and draw 

 from fifty to one hundred from the city, and one hundred loads of 

 black muck on corn ground. 



I generally drag in my compost manures on my wheat grounds, at 

 the time of sowing, which course I prefer, as it leaves it within the 

 reach of the roots of the young plant, and gives it a strong and 

 healthy start in its young and feeble stage of existence. For corn 

 and potatoes it is used fresh from the yards and plowed in. 



My cattle and horses are all stabled in winter, and the manure and 

 litter, as it is thrown out, is kept in heaps that it may not be but 

 little exposed to leach from falling rains and snows. The yards are 

 kept constantly littered with straw, having always a surplus on hand, 

 and having water in the yard, the animals when out are preparing 

 the litter for the summer compost. 



The most of the droppings are in the stables. The balance when 

 out is hardly enough to cause fermentation and decomposition in the 

 straw. 



9. The most of the manure is used for the wheat crop, for which 

 purpose it must be thoroughly decomposed, and turned as often as 

 it heats, or it will mildew and burn, as our lands in this region 

 require lime. I prefer plaster (as an absorbant with the com- 

 post) to lime, as it has a tendency to extricate and throw off 

 the gasses. If the manure is not well decomposed, it has a ten- 

 dency to increase the straw at the expense of the grain ; it falls 

 down, rusts or blasts, and is a decided detriment to the crop. If 

 fresh manures are plowed in in the spring, and a corn or potatoe crop 

 taken off, it is then in a proper state for the wheat crop, and if it can 

 be sown in season, on or before the 15th September, it makes one 

 of the cheapest and best crops the farmer can make. 



I have only used plaster and lime. Lime at the rate of forty 

 bushels slacked per acre, from the use of which, as yet, I have seen 



