82 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



twelve inches. This is made dishing, and with a slight fall, so 

 that any liquid will drain into a vat ; or it may simply be a pond, 

 if in a stiff clay. Strong poles are laid across the excavation, 

 on which an open floor of rails or old boards is laid. On this 

 floor is built up the material to be made into manure, which may 

 be straw, weeds, corn-stalks, sods, sawdust, spent tan, apple 

 pomace, peat, swamp mud, or any or all of them mixed. The 

 pond or vat is to be filled with water, which is to be made 

 into what is called saturated or corrupted water. This is done 

 by throwing into it dead animals, butchers' offal, chamber and 

 kitchen refuse, hen manure, etc. It is claimed that the addition 

 of a pint of quicklime previously slaked to each barrel of 

 water will prevent any unhealthy exhalations from this pond. 

 After this water has become polluted it is to be made into a lye 

 by adding to each thirty barrels the following : 



2 bushels of quicklime. 



2 bushels of chimney soot (if obtainable). 



2 bushels of wood ashes. 



4 pounds of salt. 



2 pounds of saltpeter. 



5 bushels of plaster paris. 



3 barrels of night soil. 



1 barrel of water leached from manure. 



This lye is then to be dipped or pumped over the mass of 

 absorbents which have been built on the floor over the excava- 

 tion and will produce a violent fermentation, killing all seeds and 

 causing rapid decomposition. The liquid should be applied until 

 it leaches through, and care should be taken to apply it to all 

 parts. After it has heated up thoroughly, give it a second wat- 

 ering, and a few days later still a third. The manure will be 

 ready for use in from fifteen to twenty-five days. 



I have described this method, not because I suppose that our 

 readers will be likely to adopt it, but because it suggests the 

 best use to be made of our liquid manures. I believe it would 

 pay to have a vat adjoining every barn-yard to conduct the 

 liquid manure into, and that the best way to use this liquid 

 would be to saturate the manure heap with it. On our clay 

 upland there is no difficulty in making a pond water-tight, and 

 all we should need to guard against would be its overflowing 



