290 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



To one of these reservoirs let all the liquids from the 

 house be committed dsiilj, covered with the disinfectant, and 

 occasionally transferred to the great reservoir, the barnyard, 

 where the effluvia may all be converted to a substance in- 

 noxious as the carbonate of ammonia, and here securely held, 

 to be subsequently — when chemically combined with every 

 thing else that can be gathered from the farm — ^^transferred 

 to the soil, and then transmuted by the wonderful process of 

 growth into grasses, fruits, and flowers. And while we are 

 considering how to dispose and make the most of the ma- 

 nure from horses, cattle, and swine, let us not forget the 

 sheep and the hens. Probable there is less waste in sheep 

 husbandry, and a greater from the hennery, if neglected, 

 than that occasioned by poor management in the keeping of 

 any other of the animal creation. 



Every farmer who has neglected his flock of hens, caring 

 little for their products and less for their feed, would be 

 perfectly astounded at the results of these manufacturers 

 of fertilizers, when properly cared for, and their droppings 

 saved, manipulated, and utilized after the most approved 

 manner. By so doing, a deposit of guano may be brought to 

 each farmer's yard, with but very little or no direct outlay, 

 and a fertilizer of the best kind, sufficient for an acre of corn, 

 roots, or grass, may be provided ; and he will never realize 

 that it has cost him a single additional penny. 



We would lay down this axiom, — no one can afford to 

 purchase commercial fertilizers, and neglect to husband any 

 resource around his own premises, when by so doing he can 

 secure one equally valuable, without money or price, and at 

 the same time remove from around his buildings and fields 

 fallen leaves, the refuse of crops not consumed by his cattle, 

 corn-butts, potato-vines, which, if suffered to remain, mar 

 the beauty of his enclosures, are in the way, a source of an- 

 noyance, and if suffered to be thrown around the premises, 

 and to decompose in the yards, are deleterious to the health 

 of the family. Hundreds of lives have been sacrificed by 

 the secret poisons of typhoid-fever and diphtheria generated 

 in farmer's cellars from decaying wood and vegetables, from 

 the unsuspected cesspools and sink-drains festering with 

 mephitic gases, and filtering into the wells that supply the 

 family with water, or generating a miasm that walketh in 



