ORGANIC MANURES. 71 



plow in cultivating. This was the system adopted by the 

 Aborigines of our country, in raising their maize on exhaust- 

 ed lands, long before their occupancy or even discovery by 

 the whites. There is waste in this practice, as the soils 

 used for corn are generally light and sandy ; and the slight, 

 silicious covering imperfectly combines with the putrefying 

 fish, and much of their gases thereby eludes the plant, to the 

 excessive annoyance of the olfactories of the residents, for 

 miles around. 



The proper method of using them, is by composting with 

 dry peat, in alternate layers of about three inches in thick- 

 ness of fish to nine of peat, and over the whole, a coating of 

 two or three feet of peat is placed. A few weeks of warm 

 weather suffice to decompose the fish, which unite with the 

 peat, no perceptible effluvia escaping from the heap, so ef- 

 fectual is its absorption. A strong acid smell is, however, 

 noticeable, originating in the escape of the acidifying or an- 

 tiseptic principle contained in the peat, which has kept it for 

 ages in a state of preservation, and whose expulsion is the 

 signal for breaking up its own structure. It now passes 

 rapidly into decay, and is soon lost in a mass of undis- 

 tinguishable, vegetable mold, the fruitful bed of new and 

 varied vegetable forms. This compost may remain without 

 injury or waste for years. Two or three weeks before using, 

 it should be overhauled and intimately mixed, when another 

 fermentation commences with an elevation of temperature. 

 When this ceases, it may be applied to the land. This com- 

 post will be found adapted to nearly all soils and crops. 



COTTON SEED. 



This is yielded at the rate of 200 to 400 Ibs. per acre, and 

 is a valuable manure. It would doubtless be more profitable, 

 if first made to yield the oil which it contains, to the amount 

 of about 20 per cent, and use the residuum as a manure ; or 

 to feed it, when properly prepared, to the stock, and use 

 their manure for the fields. Where this is not done, how- 

 ever, the seed ought carefully to be saved and applied to the 

 land, at the rate of 60 to 80, or even 100 bushels per acre. 



It may be scattered broadcast, and plowed in during the 

 winter, where it will rot before spring ; or it may be thrown 

 into heaps and allowed to heat, and when vitality is 

 destroyed, it may be plowed or drilled in, or thrown upon the 

 corn hills and buried with the hoe or plow. 



