MUCK HOW TO UTILIZE IT. 127 



to be rooted or scratched over, trampled into the un- 

 derlying strata, and overspread in its turn. Thus 

 treated, I am confident that each hundred cords of 

 Muck will be equal in value to an equal quantity of 

 manure, though it may not give . up its fertilizing 

 properties so freely to the first crop that follows its 

 application. I have land that did not yield (in pas- 

 ture) the equivalent of half a tun of hay per annum 

 when I bought it, that now yields at least three tuns 

 of good hay per annum ; and its renovation is mainly 

 due to a free application of Swamp Muck. 



To those who have a good stock of animals, with 

 Muck convenient to their yards, I would not recom- 

 mend any other treatment than the foregoing ; but 

 there are many who keep few animals, or whose 

 muck-beds lie at the back of their farms, two or three 

 hundred rods from their barns ; while they wish to 

 fertilize the fields in this quarter, which have been 

 slighted in former applications, because of the dis- 

 tance over which manure had to be hauled. If these 

 possess or can buy good hard-wood, house-made Ashes 

 at twenty-five cents or less per bushel, I would say, 

 Mix these well, at the rate of two or three bushels to 

 the c<#d, with your Muck as you dig it ; work it over 

 the next Spring, and apply it the ensuing Fall, so as 

 to give it a full year to ripen and sweeten, and it will 

 be all right. But, if you have not and cannot get 

 the Ashes, and com procure dirty, refuse Salt from 

 some meat-packer or wholesale grocer, apply this as 

 yon would have applied the Ashes, but in rather 



