224 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



peat muck, gypsum or charcoal were largely used in the same 

 mixture. 



Animals fed on rich food make far the most valuable manure. 

 This will serve, in part, to show why the manure from the sty 

 is so fertilizing. Swine are fed on a great variety of rich 

 food. The actual profit of raising them, arises mainly from the 

 amount of substances they will mix together and make into 

 good manure. If the sty be supplied, at intervals, with mud, 

 loam, and other vegetable matter, tlie farmer will not complain 

 of the cost of these animals. 



Liquid manures are highly useful to grasses. Care should 

 be taken to apply them, also, to the compost heap. The rich- 

 ness of manure from the sty is due to the quantity of liquid 

 matter it contains. Hence the importance of adding a great 

 variety of vegetable substances, loam, and mud. In a word, it 

 may be said, that all liquid manures contain a large amount of 

 nitrogen, which is one principal ingredient of ammonia, to which 

 we have alluded. The importance of saving the liquid of the 

 stable, cither with the compost, or to be applied by itself, may 

 be seen, also, in the fact that the exceeding richness of guano, 

 and the manure of all fowls and birds, is due to the union of the 

 liquids and solids. 



After fermentation has taken place in animal manures, in the 

 compost or elsewhere, they maybe spread without much loss by 

 evaporation, and hence it matters not whether the top-dressing 

 is applied in the autumn or in the spring. Plaster is better 

 spread in the spring, when the moisture of the earth makes it 

 immediately available. Some prefer the autumn for spreading 

 compost manures, while others prefer the spring, just before the 

 thick grass surrounds and protects them from the sun and wind. 

 The soil, in autumn, is not injured by the loaded cart, as is liable 

 to be the case in spring. Others still, apply them after the first 

 mowing, and before the summer rains. The new crop preserves 

 the manure from (Jrying up and wasting. This, however, is 

 ordinarily too busy a season to attend to it with convenience. 



Wc have then, these several methods of improving our pas- 

 ture lands. First. To allow some of them to run to wood, or 

 whicli is far better, to plant them with forest trees, which 



