84 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



valuable enough to pay for hauling any great distance if they have to be paid 

 for. Where they can be had for the hauling a short distance it may pay the 

 local farmers to use them. 



riWAMP MUCK, OR PEAT. 







Many years ago an enthusiastic chemist wrote a book entitled the "Muck 

 Manual," and talked learnedly about gein and other things, and showed that 

 muck mixed with spent ashes was identical in composition with cow dung. 

 But the muck swamps of the country have not yet been transformed into cow 

 dung, and there is far less talk about the virtures of muck than there was in 

 the writer's boyhood. The introduction of commercial fertilizers has so re- 

 duced the labor of furnishing plant food to the soil that few are willing now 

 to undertake the great labor of digging and handling peat. There is no 

 doubt that a good quality of swamp muck, when well dried, is a good ab- 

 sorbent of liquids in stables and barnyards, and that it will put a good deal of 

 humus in the soil; and that finally there may be some release of nitrogen 

 from its organic matter. But raw muck spread on the land can have very 

 little effect in increasing its productiveness, and may do positive harm. If 

 the muck is to be applied directly to the land the best way would probably be 

 to pile it in the fall in flat heaps, and cover every six-inch layer with freshly 

 slaked lime. After lying in this way during the Winter, it will make a much 

 better application for the soil. But, as Prof. Voorhees well says, if the 

 swamp can be drained, it is far better to leave the muck there and drain the 

 land for cultivation. 



