294 STATE BOAKD OF AGKICULTURE. 



I have thus, very briefly and very imperfectly, called your attention to this 

 by far tlie most useful of all vegetable fertilizers; but I do not regard it, as 

 5ome farmers do, as a substitute for farmyard manure. For that there is no 

 complete substitute, so far as I know ; but by the timely aid of clover the farmer 

 is able, with \Yhat manure is manufactured in his stables and yards in the course 

 of tlie year, to keep his farm up to a satisfactory state of fertility, and on most 

 farms that would be a difficult thing to do without clover. It is a help to farm- 

 yard manure, not a substitute for it, and the farmer who puts his whole trust 

 in clover and neglects to save and apply the manure from his stables and yards 

 is a man of one idea truly, and some body will lose by so unwise a policy. 



I ])ass now to the consideration of our swamp muck as a help, within easy 

 reach, to the fertilizers of the farm. Tliere is an abundance of it in almost 

 ■every neighborhood. Muck, as we find it in the ordinary marshes, is not a fer- 

 tilizer of itself or alone and can only be employed profitably, first, as an absorbent 

 of liquids, and, second, as a divider of the solids of animal manures. For 

 these jnirposes there is no substance or material witliin the reach of every 

 fanner one-half as valuable. It is a complete absorbent of the liquids of the 

 stables. It not only does this but, in virtue of its great absorbent properties, 

 it acts as a perfect deodorizer and purifier of the air of the apartments where the 

 animals are housed and kept. Clay and sand serve the same purpose, but very 

 imperfectly. It is better to be dug awhile before using, in order to have it crum- 

 ble to powder. I am speaking of pure muck, not of marl nor of the mud from 

 the bottoms of ponds. These are themselves fertilizers and may be advantage- 

 ously applied to some soils. Their value in particular cases can only be 

 learned and determined by trial. We know that muck will absorb and hold 

 the volatile ammonia of tlie liquids, because as soon as applied these cease to 

 give off the pungent and offensive odors they did before. 



Second, As a divider or extender of the manure from the stables. Muck will 

 become, I think, the principal material used for this important purpose, as soon 

 as farmers feel the necessity of increasing the quantity of farmyard manure. 

 I believe that experience will sustain the assertion that a ton of muck, crumpled 

 down fine and mingled with a ton of liquid and solid stable manure, in such a 

 ■way as to absorb the liquid portions perfectly and divide the solids evenly, that 

 these two tons, so commingled together, will be worth as much as any two tons 

 of all stable manure, for any farm crop. If this is true, and I think there is no 

 doubt of it, then by this means the farmer may, at a small expense, double the 

 quantity of manure produced in his stables and yards. Unquestionably in most 

 cases, there would accrue, from such an increase of the farm fertilizers, a large 

 profit, provided that the muck could be dug and hauled in during a suspension 

 of the more urgent labors of tlie farm, when it could be done in place of doing 

 next to nothing. 



In the class of animal fertilizers, the barnyard is the chief source of advan- 

 tage. It is true that a large part of the fertilizers from the stables and yards 

 consist of vegetable matters, but for convenience we class everything used for 

 bedding the stock or for absorbing the liquids, under the same head with ani- 

 mal fertilizers. 



It might be jjrofitable, at the very beginning of this division of the subject, 

 to give full and complete analysis of the excrements of all kinds of domestic 

 animals, which the hard-workinsc chemists liave furnished us, but I leave that 

 part of the subject, interesting and instructive as it is, for individuals to exam- 

 ine at their leisure, as they are now easily accessible to all. 



