102 THE BOOK OF ENSILAGE. 



more than any thing else has yielded, except land cultivated by our 

 market-gardeners. 



I have no fears but what, by applying i J cords of manure to the same 

 piece, I could raise ten to twelve tons another time, for I learned some- 

 thing last season. I had them too thick : the rows were twenty-eight 

 inches apart, and as my men hated to pull up nice plants they left them 

 too close together. Next year I shall plant the rows three feet apart, 

 and thin to twelve inches. I shall not try this piece with i cords of 

 manure, however : I shall put on at least three cords. I raised 225 

 bushels of long red mangels on one-eighth of an acre, right alongside of 

 the sugar-beets, and on another eighth of an acre side of them 160 

 bushels of yellow globe mangels. All these pieces were manured alike 

 and cultivated the same. 



Now, I want to inquire whether I had better spread about 200 loads 

 of manure on the land I intend to break up next spring, as I get it out 

 next week ; or put it in a pile, and spread it in the spring after plough- 

 ing, the ground being frozen. I cleaned my barn-cellar out in October. 

 The cellar is cemented on the bottom, and the walls pointed with cement. 

 I have made this manure since then. I have thirty-two head of cattle, 

 four horses in the barn and twenty-nine head of swine in the cellar. 



I had no idea how much manure I was losing until I cemented the 

 cellar bottom. I have been constantly throwing in dry loam and muck 

 at the rate of one to two loads per day, besides bedding my cattle with 

 sand and the horses with meadow-hay ; and now, since the urine of all 

 the animals is saved, the pig-pens which extend under all the stalls and 

 lintels are so wet and soft that the hogs are unable to get from one end 

 to the other. 



I feed one hundred pounds of cotton-seed meal, sixty pounds of corn 

 meal, fifty pounds of shorts, and twenty-four quarts of oats daily, besides 

 the food of the swine. I believe that dry muck or loam thoroughly sat- 

 urated with urine from animals fed as above, and worked up into a per- 

 fect mush, is as good to grow crops as the same bulk of solid excrement. 

 Am I right? I should like to know whether I had better spread my 

 manure on the ground, or pile it. 



Yours respectfully, 



JOHN M. BAILEY. 



WINNING FARM, Nov. i, 1878. 



From this experiment I am satisfied that sugar-beets 

 can be raised at a profit. The sugar-factories are now 



