318 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



fine with a beetle or ax-head on a flat stone, and give 

 them to your fowls : if they refuse a part of them, 

 your soil will prove less dainty. I am not sure that 

 it pays to buy any manufactured Phosphate when 

 you can get Raw Bone ; though I doubt not that, for 

 instant effect, the Phosphate is far superior. As to 

 Guano, it has not paid me; but that may be the 

 fault of careless or unskillful application. I judge 

 that any one who has to deal with sterile sands 

 that will not bring Clover, may wisely apply 400 

 pounds of Guano per acre, provided he has noth- 

 ing else that will answer the purpose. After he 

 has produced one good stand of Clover, I doubt 

 that he can afford to buy more Guano, unless 

 he can apply it to better purpose than I have yet 

 done. 



I have a strong impression that most farmers can 

 do better at making and saving fertilizei's than by 

 buying them. Lime and Sulphur (Gypsum), if your 

 soil lacks them, you must buy ; but a good farmer 

 who keeps even a span of horses, three or four cows, 

 as many pigs, and a score of fowls, can make for $100 

 fertilizers which I would rather have than two tuns 

 of Guano, costing him $180 to $200. If he has a 

 patch of bog or a miry pond on his farm any place 

 where frogs will live he can dig thence, in the 

 dryest time next Fall, two or three hundred loads of 

 Muck, which, having been left to dry on the nearest 

 high ground till November or later, and then drawn 

 up and dumped into his barn-yard, pig-pen, and 



