76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



twelve additional loads of good field dressing at a comparatively 

 small cost. Instead of paying forty dollars a ton for superphos- 

 phate, would it not be good policy to spend a part of the money in 

 trying to save what is wasted? 



Again, there is a great waste of dressing, unavoidable and cannot 

 be wholly prevented, which comes through the excrements of ani- 

 mals dropped on the highway. Perhaps it has not occurred to man}' 

 of us that this amounts to much ; and while it cannot be prevented, 

 is not worth consideration. But the annual loss the State of Maine 

 sustains through this one avenue is no small sum. In round num- 

 bers, there are 90,000 horses in the State. A large percentage of 

 these, livery stable horses, truck horses, country team horses and 

 gentlemen's driving horses, are on the road or in the street a large 

 portion of the time ; and their voidings, solid and liquid, are dropped 

 on the public way. Taking all the horses in the State together, per- 

 haps it would not be overstating it to say that one-fifth of all the 

 voidings of Maine's horses is dropped on the highway. Reckoning 

 the dressing from each animal worth five dollars per 3'ear, we have 

 in the aggregate, $450,000, one-fifth of which, $90,000, is dis- 

 tributed along the public way. 



I do not claim that these figures are correct ; they are simpl}^ mv 

 estimate, founded upon observations in m\' own vicinity. The esti- 

 mate is low, purposely so, because I dislike exaggerating either losses 

 or profits. 



But even this loss need not be total. In rains and showers, and 

 more largely in freshets, these voidings are washed into the gutters, 

 whence they are carried away to the brooks and streams, and so 

 become a total loss ; but in man}^ cases, the water may be so con- 

 trolled b}- tapping the gutters in different places, as to let the water 

 flow over our fields, and thus the}' may receive the benefit of this 

 fertilizing material that would otherwise be lost. 



Here, then, we have a fund in perpetuits', kept replenished b}- the 

 public, upon which our fields may draw without expense ; and though 

 there be a continual run upon this fund, it can by no possibility fail ; 

 though, by our own indifference and neglect, our fields may fail to 

 receive the benefit so freely given. 



There is another source of waste which is almost universal, and 

 apparently so insignificant that not the slightest attention is given to 

 it. I refer to the run from the sink-spout. This is the outlet of 

 slops, dish-water, soap-suds, scraps of meat and fish, crumbs of bread. 



