iMANURE-ITS TREATMENT AND VALUE. 277 



THE APPLICATION OF MANUKE. 



After it is well composted our practice is to apply it at any time when there 

 is not a crop on the ground and other work is not pressing. For early spring 

 crops I would rather put on manure in the fall and plow it under; but as this 

 is a driving season with us, we draw on the larger part during the winter when 

 our men and horses are not busy. The objection to applying manure in the 

 ■spring where large quantities are used, is that driving over the ground makes 

 tracks that will remain lumpy and interfere with the cultivation nearly all sum- 

 mer, particularly if the spring is wet. It would not be advisable to apply manure 

 in the winter to sloping ground where the spring rains would wash it off, nor 

 in heaps large enough to ferment. 



Oii THE FARM OF MR. WILLIAM SMITH, 



the gentleman who makes such a fine show of fat cattle and pigs at our State 

 fair, the manure is drawn on in haying time as fast as the grass is cut. The 

 men and teams work at the manure mornings while the dew is on, and on wet 

 days ; by this means the extra force of men employed at that season have no 

 lost time. This farm is essentially a grass farm. 



THE MOST ECONOMICAL WAY 



of drawing on heavy applications of manure, where the field is near the yard, 

 is in using two carts with a man to load and boy to drive, dumping the loads 

 regularly over the field. A man will spread more manure in a day standing 

 on the ground than he will from a wagon, and get it more evenly distributed. 



FOR LIGHT APPLICATION 



it would undoubtedly be a saving of time to draw and spread from wagons. A 

 good man with the right tools will load from 60 to 100 cart loads in a day, and 

 a man will spread from 80 to 125 loads. 



THE BEST TOOLS 



we have found for handling manure or compost, are the Partridge four and 

 six-tined forks. They are made of the best steel, are strong and very light. 

 A man will handle about a quarter more manure with these forks in a day than 

 with the ordinary fork and shovel. 



For ordinary farm crops and some garden stuff we prefer to apply manure to 

 the surface of the ground after it is plowed, working it in with a cultivator or 



harrow. 



But for such crops as onions, carrots, and parsnips, the seed of which germ- 

 inate slowly and with little vitality, if a heavy coating of manure is applied to 

 the surface and worked in but one or two inches, and there happens to be a 

 long dry time soon after the seed sprouts, a large portion of it will die out. 



AN EXPERIMENT. 



Last spring on two onion beds side by side, on one of which the manure was 

 harrowed in and on the other plowed in four inches deep, and plowed up again, 

 the seeds nearly all came up on both beds ; the ground was very dry, and in 

 two weeks about one-half of the plants on the bed where- the manure was left 

 on the surface had died out ; the other nearly all grew. If we could depend on 

 having spring showers, I would rather apply to the surface. 



