MANURING. 123 



ber that the most valuable portion of manure is the soluble part and is 

 the portion to be carefully husbanded. As a general rule it is cheaper for 

 a gardener or farmer to improve the quantity and quality of his manure 

 pile by buying extra feed than by buying commercial fertilizers. 



In many gardening operations it is necessary to have the manure act 

 quickly. Perhaps I might define market gardening as the using of the 

 soil as a machine to turn manures into crops, and farming as the use of 

 manure to supplement the annual amount of plant food set free in the 

 soil. On this account manure for early garden crops should be thoroughly 

 rotted before being applied to the land. The manure from our various 

 classes of farm animals varies very much, and the manure from the same 

 class of animals also varies, according to the food from which it has been 

 made and the age of the animals from which it came. The manure from 

 a well fed, full grown fatting steer is much richer than that from a grow- 

 ing, well fed calf or two year old, because in the case of the steer, there 

 is no material used for building up bone and muscle. Again, the manure 

 from a horse fed on oats and good hay is far superior to that from the 

 same horse fed on bog hay alone. 



But this subject is of too vast an extent to be more than just touched 

 upon in such a paper as this. But there is one very prolific source of 

 home-made manure and that is the compost heap. 



COMPOST HEAP. 



Every farm should have one of sufficiently large proportion to take care 

 of all refuse organic material. It should be made about as follows: 

 Select a place handy to get at, put down first a bed one foot deep of old 

 sods or muck, and on this pile all the refuse material as it collects in 

 various places; it may consist of old straw, leaves, an occasional load of 

 heating manure, rotten vegetables, etc. This should be turned over 

 occasionally, by hand if necessary, but the best plan is to have the com- 

 post heap in the hog yard, and to it haul manure as it collects near the 

 stables. If manure is piled up on a good bed of rotten sod, it will not 

 lose much by leaching nor will it lose by heating if hogs have the run 

 of it. 



DISCUSSION. 



Pres. Elliot: Any questions to be asked on this paper? 



C. H. Gordon : What kind of manure we have on the farm 

 would be best to use on a marsh strawberry patch? 



Prof. Green: If you use the bed of an old pond it is about 

 as rich as you can make it. 



C. H. Gordon: If I was to plow it up for a year or two would 

 you advise manuring before planting again? 



Prof. Green: If I had the manure I do not know but what I 

 would use it. I do not know that it should need any manure at 

 all. There is an immense amount of available manure in it, 

 but if you do use manure, wood ashes are better than stable 

 manure. 



