192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ative value of this substance. From tlieir own experience and 

 observation, they have learned enough to know, that there is a very 

 great difference in the value of muck obtained from different local- 

 ities, and sometimes in that from the same locality. We think we 

 shall say only what will be found to be universally true, that muck 

 formed from the accumulation of leaves and the small limbs from hard 

 wood timber, is much more valuable than that formed from the litchens, 

 mosses, and small shrubs, and the roots and stalks of swamp grasses 

 and weeds. Such muck is usually much less perfectly decomposed, 

 and abounds much more in deleterious acids, than the former. We 

 have seen instances where muck flbmposcd of the roots and stalks of 

 such grasses and weeds, mingled Avith the leaves of the resinous 

 woods, such as the pine and hemlock, have been so surcharged with 

 acids, that it was perfectly fatal to vegetable life. There is a 

 deposite of muck in the town of West Bridgewater, Mass., that is 

 so deadly that a shovel full of it thrown on grass land will kill every 

 root of grass, and it takes from two to three years before the rains, 

 frosts and snows, and atmospheric influences can dissipate the deadly 

 salts, and restore the place to its previous fertility. 



In all deposits of muck, that near the surface is less valuable 

 than that below, but there is more difference between these rarts, 

 in that formed from weeds and grasses growing on the surface, and 

 having a peaty character, than where it is composed mainly of the 

 decaying deposites from a hard wood growth. Indeed, the surface 

 of the first, as it comes from its bed, is entirely worthless as manure. 

 It is only by heaping it up, and allowing it to decay, that it can be 

 rendered of any manurial value. 



The manurial value of muck can be determined with a tolerable 

 degree of accuracy by the eye, in most cases. When it is of a very 

 dark color, approaching a black, of a fine texture, and when par- 

 tially dry of a pasty character, and when well dried, and cut with a 

 sharp knife, a smooth, shining surface is formed, it may almost 

 always be written down as of the very first quality. Indeed, it is 

 always i.. unless as is sometimes the case, some destructive acid salts 

 have been termed out of some of the materials of which it is com- 

 posed, in the process of decomposition, or deposited there from the 

 Water that has overflowed it. But muck that is of a light brown 

 color, and of coarse texture, is of little value as manure, if not 



