70 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



what is better, mixed at once with the soil, or with a com- 

 post where their volatile matters will be retained. They 

 are very soluble, and when exposed to moisture, are liable to 

 waste. Since these contain the essential elements of guano, 

 the economy of saving them must be apparent, to those who 

 buy the imported fertilizers at so large a cost. 



FLESH, BLOOD, &c. 



When decomposed, these substances afford all the mate- 

 rials of manure in its most condensed form. Whenever pro- 

 curable, they should be mixed with eight or ten times their 

 weight of dry peat, turf, tan-bark or rich garden mold. A 

 dead cow or horse thus buried in a bed of peat, will yield 12 

 or 15 loads of the richest manure. Butchers' offal when 

 thus treated, will yield ten times its weight of more valuable 

 manure than any from the cattle yards. 



HAIR, BRISTLES, HORNS, HOOFS, FELTS, THE FLOCKS AND 

 WASTE OF WOOLEN MANUFACTORIES AND TANNERIES. 



These are all rich in every organic material required by 

 plants ; and when mingled with the soil, they gradually 

 yield them, ond afford a permanent and luxuriant growth to 

 every cultivated crop. Most animal substances contain from 

 15 to 18 per cent, of nitrogen ; and when it is considered, that 

 this is a greater amount than is afforded by an equal quanti- 

 ty of saltpetre, and about two-thirds of that contained in ni- 

 tric acid, (one of the most condensed and powerful manures), 

 the recklessness and waste is apparent, of throwing dead ani- 

 mals and similar manures by the road-side, and allowing them 

 to decay above ground ; thus robbing the soil of it's just dues, 

 and afflicting the nostrils' of the community with what if 

 rightly appropriated, might minister to the necessaries and 

 even to the luxuries of mankind. 



FISH. 



Fish are extensively used in this and other countries for 

 manure. The moss-banker, alewives and other fish frequent 

 the Atlantic coast in countless numbers in the spring and 

 summer, and are there caught in seines, and sold to the far- 

 mers by the wagon-load. They are sometimes plowed into 

 the soil with a spring crop ; or they are more frequently used 

 for growing corn, for which purpose, one or two fish are 

 placed in each hill and buried with the seed ; or they are 

 turned under near the young corn, at the first running of the 



