198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the harvest and fall seeding, and the rule is to cart it off regu- 

 larly every week. 



The manure, as it is can-ied out, is immediately spread, that 

 it may not rot in small heaps, or be washed and unevenly distrib- 

 uted. If it comes directly upon the stubble field, it is ploughed 

 under with the stubble ; if upon ground already ploughed, it 

 remains lying spread out upon the surface, till the proper time 

 for ploughing comes. If the laud is frozen, the same is done ; 

 and it lies till the land is ready for the plough. The same 

 course is pursued even when the ground is covered with snow ; 

 the manure is spread upon the snow, so that it immediately 

 freezes and does not rot without a covering. The whole man- 

 agement is designed to have the manure, when it is possible, 

 rot in the soil, and not in heaps upon the surface. Fermentation 

 of manure above the surface is prevented, as far as it can be, 

 so that the gaseous products may be developed in the soil and 

 held fast by it. 



In the sheep pens the manure remains lying a longer time. 

 Under the treading of the animals in the close space, less goes 

 to waste than in open heaps, yet here and there where there is 

 danger of this, gypsum is spread over the manure, and when- 

 ever a sufficient store is collected, this also is carted out. 



In summer, and commencing about the 20th of April, a part 

 of the sheep are penfolded by means of movable fences, and in 

 rains and great heats, they are driven under sheds or into 

 stalls, where they are furnished with litter. The finer ewes 

 with their lambs are folded at night in the stall till weaning 

 time, and after the rowan harvest, the ewes are let upon the 

 inlying meadows, but the lambs are not turned upon them till 

 the following year. The pen is the best mode of managing and 

 applying this manure, because nothing is. lost, and the urine of 

 the animal, which in the stall mostly escapes as ammonia, is 

 saved. They attain also with manuring by means of the pen- 

 fold more than three times as much as by the stall dung which 

 is produced by the same number of animals in the same time. 



The preparation of compost is not so extensively carried on 

 now as formerly, because the carting to and fro costs too much. 

 The compost heap is very conveniently placed near the build- 

 ings. It is in a circular basin hollowed out four to five feet 

 deep, to which on two opposite sides there is an entrance and 



