]78 AS^/a?? Manure and Siratv. [April, 



Its altitude does in no case exceed eighteen inches, more commonly 

 four or five. Its periods of vibration are short. — Scientific American. 

 Several years ago when shooting pike one fine April day, we 

 noticed this little tide in Lake Ontario. To follow the sport, we 

 were obliged to wade about among the grass and reeds of a little 

 estuary where the pike ( pickerel the people there call them ) came 

 up to spawn. We noticed with surprise that about every hour there 

 was a regular tide of some eight or twelve inches in hight, as near 

 as we can now recollect. The day was perfectly clear aud calm, 

 one of those Indian summer days that sometimes come in April. 

 This precluded the idea of its being the effect of distant winds. 

 Can any one suggest a cause for this phenomenon ? — Exchange. 



STALL-MANURE AND STRAW. 



Ordinary stall-manure is a varying mixture of animal excrements, 

 urine, and straw-litter. It is strong, in proportion to the urinous 

 liquid it has absorbed ; weak, in proportion to the small amount of 

 urine and the large quantities of straw it contains. With these cir- 

 cumstances also its greater or less facility of decomposition entirely 

 coincides. Among these ingredients the urine has the greatest 

 tendency to putrefaction and decay, and straw the least; manure 

 rich in urine will, therefore, pass more rapidly into fermentation, 

 and arrive more quickly at what is called " ripeness," than when poor 

 in this constituent. 



Fresh manure is, however, no means of nourishment to plants ; it 

 becomes so only by what is termed fermentation, that is, by a t^xq- 

 ^iovi^ putrefaction and decay. The changes which manure undergoes 

 by these processes of disintegration extend chiefly to its organic or 

 combustible constituents; inasmuch as these are transformed into a 

 brownish-black, pulverulent mass, (the well known humus,) while 

 a part becomes at the same time aeriform, and escapes into the at- 

 mosphere. Coincidently with this, a quantity of water is also evap- 

 orated; and from these two volatilizations it is easily understood 

 why fermented manure is of less weight than fresh. If the matter 

 so escaping was exclusively water, this diminution in bulk and in 

 weight would be advantageous and desirable ; for the farmer would 



