THE BEST MANURES. 271 



did very well for two years, but did not hold out as well as I 

 wanted ; and so I have kept it under a state of cultivation 

 almost ever since. With regard to manure, I have used 

 almost every kind I ever heard of and could buy. Among 

 them were a great many humbugs. At first I did not buy 

 much manure, as I did not have the money to pay for it, and 

 did not think it would pay to buy, if I had possessed the 

 means. After 1862 I began to buy from the stable in town, 

 in a small way, and used some poudrette and phosphate. 

 Since then, have used Peruvian, Pacific, and other guanos, 

 fish-offal, and pomace ; have bought at different times all the 

 slaughter-house manure I could ; I have also used some dif- 

 ferent kinds of phosphate, and all I could buy of wood-ashes, 

 Stockbridge Fertilizer, wool-waste, hen-manure (of which 

 latter I have bought a hundred and fifty barrels in a season) ; 

 last and best, I have purchased largely from the stable, if 

 I could, where hogs were kept on the manure, and I have 

 3'et to plant the crop that I cannot grow successfully with 

 that fertilizer. I would not condemn phosphates, nor other 

 patent fertilizers, by any means, especially if I were located 

 quite a distance from a city, and could not obtain manures 

 such as I can as now situated. But I should make all the 

 manure I could first on the farm. This can be done in many 

 ways ; and one of the most important is a barn-cellar, in which 

 all of the liquid can be saved. I have the bottom of my 

 manure-pen eight inches lower than the other portions of the 

 barn-cellar; and, as it is thoroughly cemented, it saves all 

 liquids which are conducted into it. The liquid from the 

 stock is nearly equal to the solid manure. I gather leaves 

 for bedding, tie stock up nights all the year round, and in 

 many other ways have contrived to utilize all sources for 

 manures. 



I have ploughed in clover and buckwheat with good re- 

 sults, as fertilizers, and think this latter method, for some 

 lands, is a very cheap way to manure. All dead animals 

 make a most excellent fertilizer, a horse or cow being equal 

 to a cord of the best manure. I put them in an out-of-the- 

 way place, dig through the soil, cut the animals open, and 

 put in one cask of unslacked lime. The largest crop of 

 melons I ever raised was on manure of this kind. Hen- 

 manure I keep until it is a year old, working over occa- 



