180 [Senate 



f . . . 



erring to at once, do all for a field that I can in this way. About 



fifty loads of thirty bushels each, of half rotted manure to the acre at 

 a dressing. 



My stables are situated on two sides of a square : the manure, as it 

 is taken from the stables, is at once piled in the centre of the yard^ 

 as high as a man can pitch it. Sulphate of lime is put on the 

 manure in the stables, and the heap, as soon as fermentation com- 

 mences, is whitened over with it. My sheep are all fed under cover, 

 and most of their manure is piled under cover in the spring, and 

 rotted. As to keeping manure under cover, my experience has led 

 me to believe, that the best way is to pile it under cover, when it is 

 most convenient to do so, and only then, as I am compelled to apply 

 water to the heap to rot it, unless it has received the snows and rains 

 out doors. The coating of sulphate of lime will, I believe, prevent 

 loss of the gases, and in process of fermentation the heap will settle 

 so close together, that water w^ill not after that enter into it, to any 

 considerable depth, particularly if it was piled high and came up to 

 a sharp point. 



7. My means of collecting and making manure, are the straw, corn 

 stalks and hay raised on the farm, fed to farm stock, and what is not 

 eaten, trampled under foot, and converted as before described, so 

 much of it as goes through the stables. But large quantities of straw 

 never pass through the stables at all ; stacks are built in the yards,^ 

 and the straw is from time to time strewed over the ground, where it 

 receives the snows and rains, and is trampled by the cattle. Embank- 

 ments around the lower sides of the yard, prevent the water from 

 running off, and confine it in water tight pools, which are filled with 

 straw to absorb the water, except so much of it as is wanted to put 

 on the garden, 



8. I make from four to five hundred loads of manure annually, and 

 it is all applied. 



9. Most of the manure is put on corn ground. It is drawn on 

 about one half rotted, and spread over the surface, and plowed under 

 about four inches deep. The reason I do not plow it under deeper, 

 is, that I suppose I must plow deeper the next time, to bring up the 

 earth into which the manure has been carried by the rains. 



10. I have never used lime in any quantity, excepting in the form 

 of a sulphate as a manure, believing that there is enough in the soiL 



