116 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



commercial fertilizers. In my judgment, almost any 

 farmer who has cattle, with fit shelter and Winter 

 fodder, can make fertilizers far cheaper than he can 

 buy them. I judge that almost every farmer who has 

 paid $100 or over for Guano (for instance), might 

 have more considerably enriched his- farm by draw- 

 ing muck from some convenient bog or pond into his 

 barn-yard in August or September and carting it 

 thence to his fields the next Fall. If he can get no 

 muck within a mile, let him cut, when they are 

 in blossom, all the weeds that grow near him, es- 

 pecially by the road-side, cart them at once into his 

 barn-yard, and there convert them into fertilizers. 

 In Autumn, replace the hay-rack on the wagon or 

 cart, and pile load after load of freshly-fallen leaves 

 into your yard ; taking them, if you may, from the 

 sides of roads and fences, and from any place where 

 they may have been lodged or heaped by the winds, 

 your own wood-lot excepted. Plow the turf off of 

 any scurvy lot or road-side, and pile it into the barn- 

 yard; nay, dig a hundred loads of pure clay, and 

 place it there, if you can get it at a small expense, and 

 your average soil is gravelly or sandy. The farmer 

 who is unable or reluctant to buy commercial fertil- 

 izers should apply his whole force every Autumn to 

 replenishing his barn-yard with that material which 

 he can obtain most easily which the trampling of his 

 cattle may readily convert into manure. A month is 

 too little, two months would not be too much, to de- 

 vote to this good work. Some may seem obliged to 



