256 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



original hay had remained and decayed on the land where it grew. 

 Its bulk is unchanged, but the quality is just so far reduced as the 

 animal has appropriated its nutritious constituents in adding 

 to its structure, or in the production of fat or milk. In addi- 

 tion to this manure, a considerable proportion of that part of 

 the food which goes to supply waste is eventually given off in 

 the liquid excretion of the animal, and this liquid, when used 

 in connection with the solid, is found to have a pecuniary value 

 equal to or even exceeding it. It does not form humus in the 

 course of its decomposition, but it produces ammonia, and this 

 alkali combining with the humus of the solid manure renders 

 it soluble, and as a consequence, at once available. 



It is the experience of every careful and observing farmer, 

 that, if the manurial product of an acre of grass be all saved 

 and returned to the same acre, the productive power of the land 

 will be increased thereby. It will be readily seen that this 

 must be so, else every cultivated farm would long since have 

 become barren, or rather, it would never have been otherwise. 

 Were it not a wise provision of nature that vegetation takes 

 from the soil, in the course of its formation, much less humus 

 than its decay will furnish, this earth would have been forever 

 a barren waste, witliout a green or living thing upon its face. 



This survey of the subject seems to open up to our view the 

 principal source from which success is attainable in the pursuit 

 of agriculture. If we carefully save all the vegetable matter 

 of our lands, and return it to the earth, either before or after 

 being used for feeding purposes, our soil must necessarily 

 increase in its capacity to produce crops ; but if, on the other 

 hand, by neglect, by wastefulness in any manner, or the indul- 

 gence of too great a greed for money to be obtained by selling 

 hay or other products, without returning their equivalent in 

 manure, by purchase or otherwise, we deprive our soils of this 

 humus producing matter, they must necessarily run down and 

 become less and less productive and valuable. 



Let us look for a moment at the course pursued by a great 

 majority of our farmers. Their hay and other forage is, perhaps, 

 well fed, and produce an equivalent in manure. The solid por- 

 tion is thrown out of the barn window to remain in a heap, 

 exposed to tiie weather, until the annual or semi-annual clear- 

 ing up. In the meantime the pile heats, and ammonia is 



