FERTILIZERS. 53 



The power of absorption is not the only recommendation of muck for the base of com 

 post. Pure muck is pure vegetable matter, has been once organized into vegetable life, and 

 in its decay must furnish food for future vegetation. Placed in contact with animal manures, 

 or any dead animal substance, the decomposition of the muck is also accelerated, and the 

 mutual action is highly favorable for forming a good plant-food. 



The quality of muck varies in different localities. We have dug that which had the 

 odor of burning gunpowder as it first came from the pit. Such muck is a good manure in 

 itself. Other deposits possess less intrinsic value. The goodness depends in a measure upon 

 the character of the vegetation which, by its partial decay, has formed the muck bed. 

 Rushes, ferns, and mosses form a muck of less value than that made from leaves of deciduous 

 trees, and soft, sappy wood, partially decayed, furnish less fertilizing material than hard 

 woods. 



But muck is not the only base of the compost heap, and whether we should use it at all 

 will depend somewhat on the nature of the soil to which the compost is to be applied. If 

 this is sandy or gravelly, or a loam in which sand predominates, there is no better compost 

 than that with muck or leaf -mold as the base. On clay land, also well-drained, muck operates 

 favorably in making it loose and friable ; but if it is inclined to be wet and cold, muck 

 increases this tendency, as it is a great absorbent and retainer of moisture. We have used a 

 muck compost on a clay loam, pretty well drained too. till we perceived that the vegetation 

 started a little later in the Spring, when we changed the base of the compost, using alluvial 

 soil instead of the muck. The change was decidedly beneficial. The soil was apparently 

 pretty much destitute of vegetable matter, but was rich in silicates and other salts. 



The caterer of plant-food finds that plants, like animals, are fond of a variety. Barn 

 yard manure is the staple fertilizer, and, like bread in the animal economy, makes the best 

 steady diet. But this manure is better when made up or composted of the excrements of 

 different animals. Let a farmer feed a piece of land with the droppings of sheep alone, or 

 cows alone, for a series of years, and he will find that the effect is not so great after a time, 

 and that a little horse-manure put for a change upon the same land will work wonders. 

 Night-soil is one of the most efficient fertilizers, and has been much used by market-gardeners 

 near our large cities, yielding in its first applications immense crops, but after a time it loses 

 its magical influence, and a market-gardener once said to us that he was so well convinced of 

 the necessity of a change in plant-food, even where night-soil was used, which he considered 

 the best for the growth of vegetables, that once in the course of six or eight years he would 

 prefer a dressing of muck or rotted sods, or leaf -mold, or even good loam, to any pure nitro 

 genous manure. A compost made of nitrogenous manure, salt, lime, ashes, bone-dust, refuse 

 vegetables, and refuse of almost every nature, will make a fertilizer of which plants will not 

 soon tire. 



Different methods are employed for forming composts, according to the judgment and 

 opinions of different individuals; some preferring a hill-side slope for locating the compost 

 heap to an elevated, level situation. 



Dr. Thomas Pollard, late Commissioner of Agriculture in Virginia, gives the following 

 method in his recent report: 



&quot; A good plan for a compost heap is to select a gentle slope, and from the place selected 

 for the compost, dig a ditch, say a foot wide and half a foot deep, as long as may be necessary, 

 and sink a keg or barrel at the mouth to catch the drainings. On each side of the compost 

 pile slope the ground with a hoe down to the ditch, so that all the drainings will flow into the 

 ditch; cover the whole bottom where the compost is to be formed with plank and cover the 

 ditch with plank, so that the drainage will get into it and the compost be prevented from 

 clogging it up. To build up the pile straight it will be well to make a temporary barricade 

 of plank across the ditch about three feet up from the keg. Commence building the compost 



