48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



in heaps in warm weather undergoes great loss by volatilization. 

 If this process goes on slowly, by throwing litter among it the 

 loss by volatilization is much diminished ; so it would be by the 

 use of sand. 



The effect of tillage is not only to facilitate the action of 

 manures, but to dispense with their use to a certain degree. 

 That is, manure with poor tillage is not as efficacious as manure 

 with good tillage. The system of Tull and the Lois Weeden 

 system illustrate this. 



Rotation of Manures. — It is necessary, so far as the nutri- 

 tive functions of manures are concerned, to supply each 

 ingredient in proper proportion. It is also important to apply 

 various manures in such order as to maintain the best physical 

 condition of the soil. Thus large quantities of ashes on light 

 soils cement them, and convert them into a sort of mortar. 

 The remedy for this would probably be the application of muck 

 to such soils. 



Now, what is the best manure ? Principles and facts above 

 advanced make it evident that we may assert that there is no 

 best manure. In any case, that manure is best which makes 

 the best return at the lowest cost. The best return, however, 

 is not always the largest immediate return. A certain degree of 

 permanence in a fertilizer is more important than what is less 

 lasting and more spasmodic. Thus, the succulent grass, grown 

 on that portion of a field treated with plaster, may not yield 

 a greater weight of hay than the grass grown where plaster is 

 not applied ; the excess of green weight being simply water. 

 Lowest cost is not always to be estimated by present expenditure. 

 A large application of lime or marl often benefits a field for a 

 generation ; so may bone-dust; while the same expense applied 

 in guano might give much less aggregate raturn. 



Generally the best manure is the one which contains all the 

 nutritive matters required by plants: such a fertilizer is barn- 

 yard manure. Barn-yard manure, as the product of cattle which 

 have consumed the crops of the farm, really restores to the soil 

 those ingredients which have been taken away by cropping. 

 Hence it is that the crops usually consumed by cattle, such as 

 corn, small grain, and hay, are usually better cultivated by 

 barn-yard manure than with any thing else. To a farm whose 

 whole product for sale is butter, there is no exhaustion from loss 



