46 W A L L ' S M A N U A L 



obtaining charcoal. Many farmers are so situated 

 that they can obtain sufficient quantities of charcoal 

 dust ; and nearly all can obtain muck, or leaf mold, 

 To this we will now turn our attention, 



MUCK OR VEGETABLE MOLD. 



By muck, we mean the vegetable deposits of swamps 

 and rivers, It consists of decayed organic matter, 

 mixed more or less with earth. Its principal con- 

 stituent is carbon^ in different degrees of development, 

 remaining after the rotting of vegetable matter, 

 The dark, fat, arable soil, containing much partially 

 decomposed vegetable mold, is always considered the 

 best land. The farmer knows that, contrary to w T hat 

 happens in his woodlands, this vegetable matter 

 decreases in his fields, and so much the more rapidly 

 as the crops are more abundant ; he knows that fields 

 rich in vegetable mold are, as a general rule, more 

 fertile than those which are poor in the same. Accord- 

 ingly as this vegetable mold diminishes it must be 

 renewed in some way, or barrenness of soil is the 

 inevitable result. This mass of brown, decaying 

 matter is partly soluble, partly insoluble, partly acid 

 and partly neutral, which, with the uninterrupted 

 presence of air, water and heat, may be still further 

 decomposed, and carbonic acid and water thereby 

 evolved. 



Carbonic acid and water are indispensable to the 

 nourishment of plants ; hence, in a soil rich in vege- 

 table mold the plants grow more vigorously, because 

 they find these ingredients ready to be absorbed by 

 their rootlets. Vegetable mold exerts a beneficial 

 influence upon vegetation in other ways. It loosens 



