FARMERS' REGISTER, 



671 



which is double the quanlily whicli he. collected 

 the first year of his f^irm-ng ; and ihis has led him 

 to conclude, that the generality of farmers have too 

 great a proportion of live-stock to their land ! 

 Tills conclusion appeared to me, at first, very ex- 

 traordinary, and almost tempted me to consider 

 him K man of paradox ; but his cxpiicHiion o' 

 this eniifma saiit-fied and undeceived me, for, said 

 he, "when a liu'm is overstocked, the owner is 

 Ibrced lo simd his cattle, in the summer months, 

 to graze on waste lands, at a distance from hio 

 house and their sheds, which is the loss of so 

 much to the farm-yard ; for as the poverty of 

 these waste lands reduces their milk, to remedy 

 this defect, the manrrer must be filled with fresh 

 grass, when they are brought home at night, 

 which necessarily diminishes their winter store of 

 provision ; scarcity of hay must imply a call for 

 straw, which ought to be entirely appropriated to 

 the dung-hill, as, without it, no improvement of 

 eoil can be expected ; and besides whi?di, bad food 

 is the source of an infinite variety of distempers." 

 And in this way he pointed out most judiciously a 

 principal cause of deficiency in the agriculture of 

 the country; for it is a fiict, that many of our 

 larmcrs keep more cattle in the summer than they 

 can conveniently support in the winter ; the ara- 

 ble and meadow lands are, by this bad manage- 

 ment, deprived of that part of the manure which 

 they require : the cattle, enfeebled for want of 

 wholesome nourishment, particularly towards the 

 spring, lose their milk or their laboring strength, 

 and frequently die of diseases easily accounted 

 /or ; and these are truths, which experience too 

 well evinces. He therefore keeps no more live 

 stock than he can amply sup.port with grass and 

 hay from his own fields; tlie straw is carefully 

 preserved and used only for litter, of which he is 

 so liberal in his stalls, that the beasts are buried 

 with it to the knees. He is attentive also to ga- 

 ther all the dried leaves, moss, rushes, &c., from 

 his land, that can in any way serve for litter; the 

 small dead boughs and pointed leaves of fir-trees 

 in particular, atibrd plentifid materials for this pur- 

 pose, and he employs in this occupation the greater 

 part of the time he can spare from his other work. 

 A compost dunghill appears to him an object of 

 po great importance to the improvement of land, 

 that of all branches of labor he regrets the want 

 of assistance in this the most, and waits, as a sin- 

 gular blessing, the time when his chiMren shall be 

 capable of contributing their share; for so tho- 

 roughly is he persuaded that lie watits only labor- 

 ing hands lo procure ,/i/Vi/ loads more of vianure, 

 without increasing the nuviber of his cattle !* In 

 prosecution of this great design, he goes in the 

 autumn into the woods with a hedge-bill, or hook, 

 to prune the supernumerary branches of fir and 

 pine trees; even of those which he thinks it use- 

 ful to leave, boldly venturing to cut the lower 

 shoots of the younir trees close to the trunk ; these 

 he binds into fagots and carries home, placing 

 them under a shed, till a proper season for prose- 

 cuting his work ; and at leisure hours, and espe- 

 cially in long winter evenings, he prepares these 

 fagots for the purpose intended, an employment so 



* Will our Jersey friends, re<5idinsr in the midst of 

 the inexhaustible marl-beds of thnt hipjhiy favored re- 

 gion, reflect on these things : fifiij loads additional in 

 the covrse of the year ! .' 



little disagreeable or fiitiguing, that it serves him 

 for recreation. He begins by cutting the small 

 branches away from the larger ones, laying them, 

 wiih the pointed leaves of these trees, in little 

 heaps, to be used for litter, while the larger and 

 louirher boughs are reserved fbr fuel ; by this me- 

 thod he amasses many proper materials for good 

 manure, that are commonly suflered to rot use- 

 lessly in the woods, v.-hich is so much real loss to 

 husbandry! i\) KLiyogg this discovery is an in- 

 estimable treasure, of which we were either igno- 

 rant or forgetful ; and this opinion is farther veri- 

 fied in the hushandty of the canton of Appenzell, 

 where they scatter dead branches of fir and pine 

 trees in great roads, lo be trampled upon by cattle 

 and passengers, by which means they acquire a 

 beginning of putrefaction, and are converted into 

 manure, though, it must be confessed, of a very 

 indifferent quality ; but Kliyogg, who had expe- 

 rienced how defective this method was, has suc- 

 ceeded in what at first seemed hard lo accomplish, 

 namely, converting these very matcria's into ex- 

 cellent manure. And although it is known that 

 resinous and aromatic juices, contained in the 

 prickly leaves of pines, are powerful enemies to 

 putrefaction, yet, what obstacles are not to be sur- 

 mounted by reason, aided by industry ! He sub- 

 dued them all, by observing certain rules in the 

 preparation of litter lor his cattle, and of the diffe- 

 rent strata of his dunghill. He does not remove 

 the dung from under his cattle under a week, 

 strewing liesh litter upon the top every day; this 

 method he does not find injin-ious to the health of 

 his cattle, nor docs he ihink it prevents cleanliness, 

 if a constant supply of fresh litter be added. His 

 exactness is conspicuous in the management of 

 this litter when taken away, lor it is placed in se- 

 parate layers upon the duna-hill, and so method- 

 ised, that iho?e where the fermentation is soonest 

 to be expected, may accelerate the putrefaction of 

 others where it is more slow ; he therefore, in the 

 berrinninir of autumn, litters Ids cattle with straw 

 during two months ; the next two months he lit- 

 ters them with twigs and spines, or pointed leaves, 

 from fir and pine trees ; then s raw aj/ain, or rushes 

 or dried leaves; then twig=, spines, and so on al- 

 ternately. 



The regulation of his compost dung-hill is as 

 follows. Lest the fermentation should be totally 

 suppressed, or even checked by drought, he is as- 

 siduously attentive to the preservation of a certain 

 degree of m.oisture, knowing that to obtain a ma- 

 ! nure thoroughly rotted, he has notliing to do but 

 ! lo preserve a constant fermsntation by frequent 

 [ waterings ; and to facilitate this, he has sunk, 

 near his dunahill, seven large square pits, which 

 • are planked with wood in the form of boxes, and 

 in these he keeps the prolific water essential lo so 

 ' many operations ; first, putting s me thoroughly 

 ■ [ermenled cow-dung at the bottom of his boxes, 

 ' he pours in a pretty considerable quantity of boil- 

 ing icatcr, and tfien fills up the pit with fresh water 

 from his well ; this brings on, in three weeks, a 

 state of putrescence, which, without boiling water, 

 could not be attained in two months ; he lias thus a 

 supply of corrupted water, as well fbr the purposes 

 of vegetation as lo keep his dung-hill in a con- 

 slant state of humidity. His reservoirs of stag- 

 nant water are surd< below his stalls and stables, 

 wiih the view to conveniency, and there is like- 

 v.'ise a trough at liie declivity of the dung-hi!!, to 



