330 Time of Entry on Farms. 



Capital. — Turn your capital over continually ; small and fre- 

 quent profits you will find the surest source of wealth. 



Manure Heaps should always be covered by a shed, having 

 moreover upon each layer as it is added a coat of earth or salt to 

 prevent the escape of the ammonia, termed by Mr. Huxtable so 

 aptly " the spirit of the farm." They should stand in a paved 

 hollow of about a foot in depth, or much of the best part will 

 sink down into the ground. We have, found the dark rich stains 

 six feet beneath the surface when the dung-heap had been laid 

 upon the bare ground. If there be no pipe from the centre of 

 the hollow in communication with the manuj-e-tank, it is an 

 excellent plan to have the paving laid after the fashion of a 

 " well-dish ;" the liquid to be thrown over the heap with a scoop 

 as it gathers in the well. 



One ton of straw, under skilful management and ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, should make three tons of manure : the average 

 yield of straw being \h tons to an acre, there will consequently 

 be 4^ tons of manure made to every acre of arable land upon the 

 farm. 



One cow housed for the winter leaves a cubic yard of manure ; 

 in summer, half a yard. 



The farm-building should be so arranged that the manure 

 from the stables, cow-sheds, and piggeries may be thrown upon 

 the same heap and mixed at once, the quality of tl)e heap being 

 improved and tempered by the admixture. It is a good plan to 

 put a layer of sawdust, ashes, mixed earth and marl, the charred 

 clippings of fences, tanners' refuse, in fact, anything absorbent, 

 beneath, to catch the drainings ; and when this cannot be done 

 we recommend the " well-dish " plan. 



When, by a thermometer plunged in, the heat of a dung-heap 

 does not exceed 100^, you may know that the fermentation is not 

 excessive, and that there is not much gaseous matter disengaged 

 and lost. 



Lime. — Almost the first piece of unsolicited advice with which 

 his old-fashioned neighbours will present the young farmer, is 

 the recommendation to "lime his land." Liming in their esti- 

 mation is a llolloway's pills remedy for all disorders and infir- 

 mities a farm can suffer from ; and many is the unhappy field 

 that has been stimulated and worn to an untimely end by the 

 injudicious adoption of this ancient panacea. There is land near 

 Flint, as indeed in many other localities, that will positively 

 grow nothing now, its vegetable element having been entirely 

 exhausted by incessant use of lime. The fatal error was run into 

 of imagining that lime manures, instead of it being only a means 

 of callinrr into action the hitherto dormant veirctable element of 



