292 BOARD OF AGRICULTUJIE. 



form the double office of bedding and absorbent. The more 

 comfortable and the warmer the animal is kept, the less will 

 be the demand on hay and grain during the cold weather of 

 this latitude. The animal is a machine that generates and 

 maintains its own heat by the carbo-hydrates stored up 

 within itself, or taken into its stomach from day to day. 

 The Laplander will pour down the blubber of the walrus as 

 a Dutchman would guzzle lager, while the dweller under a 

 vertical sun has no call for such a diet. 



The nearer the stable can approximate the tropics, and the 

 farther removed from perpetual snow, the less will be the 

 demand on the hay-mow and the hay-rick to sustain the heat 

 and life of the animal. The free use of bedding supplied 

 from any source adds to the comfort, and increases the warmth, 

 of the animal, enlarges the manure-heap, and makes more 

 plethoric both the animal and the purse of its owner. The 

 potato-tops, the corn-butts, and every kind of refuse not con- 

 taining noxious seeds, which will be carried over the land, 

 may be spread over the barnyard, and ground up by the 

 tread of the cattle while confined in the enclosure. 



The weeds on the farm that have been permitted to mature 

 their seed sufficient for germination should be placed by 

 themselves, and thrown over, mixed with lime or some decom- 

 posing substance that will raise them to a germinating heat, 

 or else burn the vitality out of them. And here let me say 

 that this compost-pile will be small, and grow beautifully 

 less, under the management of every thrifty, skilful farmer. 

 No farmer can afford to grow weeds. It is one of the most 

 exhausting crops, and takes from the soil the overplus of 

 manure not required for the growing crop, which would other- 

 wise remain stored up for succeeding crops. tWeeds make a 

 sufficiently vigorous growth without manure ; and no one can 

 aiford to make, prepare, and haul his manure to propagate a 

 nuisance, or to waste his energies by laboring to choke his 

 wheat by a vigorous growth of tares. 



When the farmer has exhausted all his skill in saving his 

 manure, by composting the droppings from his stock with all 

 the refuse from his crops, collecting saw-dust, sand, loam, 

 any thing at hand to hasten decomposition; when he has 

 gathered all from his privies, his sink-drains, his hennery, his 

 sty, and his barns, and yet his pile is too small, — he may then 



