118 OF FERTILIZERS. 



We commonly think that a stable or a cow-house is 

 necessarily a dirty place. Why ought it to he kept clean 

 and sweet ? It is almost quite as essential to the health 

 and comfort of horses or of cows, that they should be kept 

 clean and allowed to breathe a pure atmosphere, as it is 

 for the health and comfort of human beings. Besides, 

 cows are often milked in their stalls ; and if so pene 

 trating a substance as ammonia fill the air there, it will 

 necessarily be absorbed by the milk and give it a bad taste 

 and smell. 



The cost of a little plaster is very trifling. Enough to 

 answer the purpose for a whole winter will not cost a dol 

 lar ; and the value of the manure will be increased far 

 more than that, so that you have only to pay a little pains 

 for the pleasure of being clean and having the animals 

 clean, with a sweet smelling place for them to live in and 

 yourself to go to. 



388. The products of the stable, of the cow-house, of 

 the sheep-fold and of the pig-sty, are not of quite the 

 same composition and value. They are different and 

 suited to different uses. As a general rule, the contents 

 of the cellar under the cows and oxen are more fit for 

 very dry, light soils, and those from the horse-stable for 

 stiff, clayey soils. The scrapings of the sheep-fold are 

 better suited to meadow lands, as they often impart a dis 

 agreeable flavor to culinary vegetables ; and the same is 

 true of the contents of the pig-sty. 



The common practice of throwing every kind of manure 

 into one cellar, to form one heap, is not a bad one. 



When the soil to be cultivated is an average soil, neither 

 a stiff clay nor a dry sand, but a free, arable soil, the 

 practice is a very good one. The defects of one kind of 

 manure are corrected by the qualities of another, and 



