paratively little cost, and will more than compensate Food for 

 for the care it entails by doing away with ill-smelling ans 

 odors and the disagreeable and often dangerous task of 22 3 

 cleaning vaults, besides furnishing a very rich manurial 

 product for admixture with farmyard manure or com- 

 post. Such receptacle should be kept in the form of a 

 shallow drawer or box with an inclined bottom, and 

 should rest upon stout runners like a stone boat or 

 drag, so that, at frequent intervals, it can be drawn by 

 a horse to the manure pile or compost heap. 



On the bottom of the drawer should be kept a thin 

 layer of quicklime mixed with peat, wood-pile dirt, or 

 loam. 



As an alkali, soda has no advantage over potash, 

 since the decomposing action of the soda is rarely due 

 to its alkalinity. If wood-ashes are used for potash the 

 lime carbonate will neutralize the acid properties of 

 the peat, and the growth of the Nitrate ferment will 

 thus be greatly promoted. 



Soda, is in rare instances, needful as a plant food; 

 if needed it would be better economy to use soda ash. 

 In these composts the writer invariably substitutes kainit, 

 or other products of the German mines, for common 

 salt. 



Sawdust, leaves, cornstalks, tan 

 bark, and all kinds of coarse vegetable Humus ^ 

 materials are more rapidly decomposed 

 by the aid of caustic alkalies than by any other means. 

 Coarse materials, like cornstalks, trimmings from fruit 

 trees, hedges, grape vines, etc., are rich in plant food, 

 and instead of being burned should be composted with 

 potash and lime in separate heaps. More time must 

 be allowed for the decomposition of coarse materials, 

 and they should always be composted in large heaps 

 and kept moist. 



The process of nitration in the niter- 

 bed, the compost-heap, or in the soil is NitSication 

 precisely the same. The formation of 

 Nitrates is due to the continuous life and development 

 of a micro-organism known as the nitric ferment or nitric 

 bacteria, which lives upon the nitrogenous organic mat- 

 ters, ammonium compounds, and other things present 



