1206 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



his government, than the manure his tenants waste. I have 

 seen a man throw an ear at a pig that was stealing a nubbin; 

 and I have seen a man save the solid manure and allow the 

 urine to waste. Wind and rain will haul the manure without 

 wages, but they are dear hands. Collect and keep manure by 

 the use of absorbents and shelter. Ammonia loves a level, solid 

 manure pile, but it departs from a conical, loose one. Manures, 

 like some drugs, are most powerful when finely divided. Nature 

 is a good farmer, and it puts manure upon the surface. A sandy 

 subsoil and a bare surface are the Scylla and Charybdis of 

 manure. He who sows a crop for green manuring puts to work 

 in his behalf ten thousand alchemists that from hidden depths 

 take minerals and change them into fertility, and that coin plant 

 food out of air. 



I have never heard a man complain that he had tilled his 

 land too well. After you have prepared the land thoroughly 

 for a crop, harrow and roll it once more. Firm the seed-bed. 

 Plow heavy soils as deep as you can fine them. When the soil 

 and the season are right the moon is right. Weeds are robbers. 

 Weeds are always hungry, and the more they have the more 

 they want. The smallest weed is the one most easily destroyed, 

 yet the weed most easily destroyed is the one not allowed to 

 germinate. 



Keep the corn-planter close after the plow. When seed, 

 selected early and well dried, is seasonably planted on pulver- 

 ized sod, a big corn crop is half made. Test seed corn a month 

 before planting time. Clover for corn, stable manure for wheat. 

 The plow, harrow, and roller should go early and keep close 

 company in the field for wheat. Drill one bushel of wheat per 

 acre, putting it one inch below the surface of a powdered seed- 

 bed. The big cotton bale said it was planted early. The gin 

 and the ginner make or unmake one-fourth of the price of the 

 cotton. Poor baling is baleful to cotton, as poor shocking is 

 shocking to wheat. Killing the first cotton moth is killing ten 

 thousand later. Mix the cotton seed meal with corn or corn 

 fodder and feed it at home. There is not room for one weed 

 in the tobacco seed-bed. Plant tobacco plants as you should 



