48 w ALL'S MANUAL 



shell lime has been used with much effect. If oyster- 

 shell lime cannot be obtained, the best unslaked 

 stone lime is the cheapest, because it is more effective 

 in the compost, and swells very much in bulk when 

 air-slacked for use, One bushel of lime to fifty bushels 

 of muck, with half a peck of salt dissolved in water 

 enough to slake the lime to a fine powder the lime 

 being slaked no faster than w T anted for use and 

 xspread immediately, while warm, over the layers of 

 muck, which should be a foot thick, is the best way* 

 Continue the heap in this w T ay until your materials 

 arc used up. In about three weeks a powerful decom- 

 position will be apparent, When this ceases the 

 compost is ready for use. The author has made, on 

 medium land,, forty bushels of corn to the acre, with 

 twenty wagon loads of this compost, using a shovel* 

 full of compost to the hill of corn, 



A compost of twenty bushels of finely sifted muck 

 or mold, one bushel of Peruvian guano, one bushel 

 supcrphoshate of lime, the author has found to be a 

 Very active .fertilizer for corn, This amount was 

 applied to one acre of land at a cost of $7 50 per 

 acre. The land would have produced, without fer- 

 tilizing, about eighteen or twenty bushels of corn to 

 the acre. There was gathered forty- two bushels of 

 good merchantable corn from the acre by this extra 

 expenditure. About one-third of a pound of the 

 mixture was used to each hill of corn ; it was dropped 

 on the corn with a wooden scoop, so constructed as 

 to hold that amount of the mixture. 



In the Southern States, where cotton seed is so 

 abundant, a compost of cotton seed, vegetable mold, 

 and land plaster (sulphate of lime) will make a rich 



