132 [Senate 



as to suppose that were it not for the weeds, their corn would need 

 no dressing. The plowing in of weeds keeps the soil open and 

 loose ; hoe under the smallest garden weeds when covered with the 

 morning dew, and all the ammonia brought to the earth the prece- 

 ding night is saved. 



The right application of manures. — In relation to the best appli- 

 cation of manures, it is doubtful whether fresh unfermented barn- 

 yard manure will fertilize as much soil, when turned under in the 

 plowed furrow, as in the compost heap, covered with swamp muck j 

 because this muck contains much more carbonic acid to hold the am- 

 monia of the dung, than the soil of the furrow. Still the dung in 

 the furrow has the advantage of a much better mechanical action on 

 the soil, than the reduced manure of the compost heap ever can give : 

 and to a heavy tenacious soil, this mechanical action, to wit, de- 

 stroying its adhesiveness, is so important that the plowing in of 

 coarse unfermented manures, I think, should have the preference on 

 all such soils. But it will be admitted by the well practiced farmer, 

 that manures applied in either of the above modes, are threefold more 

 economical than to suffer stable dung to rot and waste its volatile 

 gases in the open air, before it is used, or applied to the soil. 



A top dressing of manure to grass lands, is not always a wasteful 

 mode of applying it, if done late in the fall, when the solar heat is 

 succeeded by long nights, and cool, moist, and cloudy days ; most of 

 its salts will be absorbed by the soil, to be fed to the roots of the 

 grass in early spring ; top dressing, in the fall, gives warmth, and 

 ensures an early growth in the spring ; but to go against this advan- 

 tage, is the loss of the manure, which must eventually be dried up 

 and wasted in the atmosphere. Frauenfelder says that the leaves 

 and branches of trimmed vines, have very little effect as manure on 

 the vineyard, unless hoed under the surface soil, when in a green state, 

 in July or August ; but that when this is done, so complete is the 

 decomposition of the pruned twigs, that in four weeks of warm 

 weather, not the smallest trace of them can be found. This mode 

 of manuring vineyards on the banks of the Rhine, has of late entire- 

 ly superseded the expensive use of animal manures. In England, 

 where the true value of manures is much better understood than in 

 the United States, top dressing, through the agency of pasturing or 

 yarding sheep, on the lot to be manured, is the only kind practiced. 

 The composition of sheep dung is known to be nearly three times 

 richer in salts than the manure of other stock, the hog included ;* 

 the mechanical structure of this excrement is also better fitted to 

 sink into the soil before it is wasted in the air. Wm. Garbutt, an 

 intelligent farmer on the Genesee river, has advised the pasturing of 

 sheep, at least one year, on the clover field intended to be broken up 

 for wheat, as the certain means of bringing back to the soil those 

 elements which are indispensable to the full development of a crop, 

 in all its original perfection ; to this advice, I believe every vegeta- 



• Dana's prize essay, p. 22. Still the urine of the hog is twice as rich in ammonia aa 

 that of sheep. 



