THE COMPOST HEAP. 123 



that they may be fit for the table, or at any rate to get them 

 out of the reach of the frost, you want to use manure so com- 

 posted, and -so comminuted, that the very moment the roots 

 reach it, they can begin to feed upon it. As a general thing, 

 the manure of our farmers is so coarse, so wet and so imper- 

 fectly composted, that it is worth but very little for this pur- 

 pose. But I find that those farmers who are farming for milk 

 or the production of beef, begin the first thing to make their 

 compost heap. And every farmer can begin it with the mate- 

 rials at hand. He may make it from the leaves in the woods, 

 from the muck-bed, from refuse manure, from anything that he 

 can get hold of that can be put into a heap, which, by the aid 

 of moisture, will decay. Any one who is in the habit of trav- 

 elling about, will find that these theories are reduced thoroughly 

 to practice by those people who come to this country from the 

 old, where they have been in the habit of cultivating small por- 

 tions of land at a great profit. 



There is no country where cultivation has been so thorough as 

 in Belgium. This has been due to several reasons, one of which 

 is, the small portion of land which each farmer occupies, and 

 their habits of systematic cultivation. You find the people 

 from that country and other countries of Europe, on the line of 

 railroad as you go to the city of New York, occupying what 

 would be considered very sterile and waste land, but on which 

 they raise the best vegetables brought into the New York mar- 

 ket. In former years, Long Island was the great garden of 

 New York ; most of the vegetables supplied to the city were 

 brought from that place. They were able to do it by the use of 

 what came from the stables of New York, which was taken to 

 the island in sloops, and there used in such a way, that the 

 farmers of that place for many years carried on, and still carry 

 on, a large and profitable business. I apprehend that their 

 profits, if compared with those of any other class of men, 

 almost, who are not doing business in the cities, would be found 

 to be much larger. So it is now around Boston. You will 

 find in all the suburbs of the city, that the men who are making 

 the most money in farming or gardening, are those who are 

 raising vegetables for the markets of that great emporium. 

 Of course, we farmers away back in the country cannot expect 

 to compete in that kind of business, but we may still find a 



