SECRETARY'S REPORT. 1 1 X 



fcreucc in value of the solid and liquid evacuations of a cow, 

 should impress upon all the importance of saving the last in 

 preference to the first." 



Excrementitious matter, whether solid or liquid, is by no 

 means our only source of food for plants. Almost every farm 

 possesses an indefinite, and often a most abundant supply, in 

 the deposits of decayed vegetable matter known as muck or 

 peat. This, to be sure, in its natural condition, is not readily 

 available by plants; they would relish and thrive upon it about 

 as well as we would on raw potatoes, but nevertheless, the food 

 is there, and only needs due preparation to make it both palata- 

 ble and nutritious. Muck or peat is also of great value, and 

 almost indispensable as an absorbent of liquid manure, and of 

 the gases generated during decomposition. In this way it not 

 only proves a most effectual and economical means of prevent- 

 ing waste, but is itself, in so doing, modified or changed so as 

 to be converted into valuable and available manure. Muck, 

 treated with ashes, is found to do exceedingly well. Another 

 mode of treating it, which has many advocates, is, to slake quick 

 lime, with a saturated solution of common salt, and mingle with 

 the muck, in the proportion of one cask of lime to a bushel of salt, 

 mixed with a cord of muck. Thus prepared, it is not a simple 

 mixture of lime, salt and muck, but during its preparation as 

 stated above, a decomposition of the salt takes place, alkali is 

 liberated, equivalent to the ashes used in the other case, and 

 by its action the vegetable food in the muck is rendered solu- 

 ble, and thus made available to plants. Other and varied sources 

 of fertilizing materials, are within the reach of every farmer, 

 many of which will be found alluded to in the statements ap- 

 pended, and so may not need comment here ; but I cannot for- 

 bear to mention one resource in which Maine is favored beyond 

 any other state of the Union, viz : the ocean. The " abundance 

 of the seas " is barely beginning to be converted to the uses of 

 agriculture. Some rockweed or kelp, and a few fishes have 

 been gathered, but when we think of what has gone into the 

 sea, from the land, and what we know of its composition, it3 

 contents and its productions, we cannot but deem it a vast 

 storehouse of untold wealth, as yet scarcely drawn upon, but 

 which will some day enrich the earth. In developing these 



