MANURES. 81 



There is little difficulty in reducing coarse manure even in winter 

 if there is enough horse dung in it to cause active fermentation, 

 for "it is always summer in a manure heap." There are many 

 farmers who think a straw stack, or corn butts, can not be reduced 

 to a condition in which it can be used for top dressing, in less 

 than a year, and I have often received letters asking if it could 

 be done and how. When I followed truck farming I wanted 

 most of my manure for spring use, and I have fed out twenty 

 acres of heavy corn fodder, cut up at the ground, thrown all the 

 butts into the manure pile, and had it in good condition for the 

 garden before the first of April. 



The way I managed it was this : My barn-yard was small, 

 about forty by fifty feet, and we took pains to see that all the ma- 

 terial was well mixed ; I do not mean that we mixed it by fork- 

 ing over, but merely that we did not dump the horse manure 

 in one part of the yard and the cow manure in another, and 

 throw the corn butts in a pile by themselves, but we took pains 

 to see that the wheelbarrow loads of manure from the horse and 

 cow stable were placed so that they would be sure to become 

 mixed, and instead of throwing an armful of corn stalks down 

 in a pile we scattered them singly. About six weeks before 

 we wanted to use this manure we put a few good-sized, vigor- 

 ous hogs in the barn-yard and fed them on the manure pile. 

 They would work it over every day to the depth of a foot or 

 more, and in about two weeks the stalks were pretty well broken 

 up and the manure ready to turn. Then we began at one side 

 and turned it from the bottom, mixing thoroughly, and in three 

 weeks it was ready for use. 



Bommer's Method. Some forty years ago a process of 

 rapidly reducing crude vegetable material to manure was pat- 

 ented by George Bommer, and in 1847 the right for the United 

 States was bought by Eli Barnett, of Connecticut. I think the 

 method was never adopted, at least not to any great extent, but 

 it contained some valuable ideas, which in a modified form could 

 be used to good advantage by farmers to-day. 



The method briefly stated is this : An excavation is made 

 on a hard soil that will not leach to the depth of eight to 



