374 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



this ; and soda, lime, and hartshorn, will answer. Still, only 

 the first three are mentioned as suitable for common use. 

 I have known some experiments with lime, that were not ap- 

 parently successful. If, therefore, says Dr. Dana, you mix with 

 one cord of peat, eight bushels of good wood ashes, or twenty 

 pounds of soda ash, or thirty pounds of potash, and effect a 

 complete mixture by frequent shovelling, you will have a cord 

 of fertilizing substance, as good as the real " Simon Pure " of 

 your stables. It may not act as quickly, but it will be more 

 enduring. 



The dictate of science, as well as of practical wisdom, is to 

 fill up every sty, and pave every cow-yard with the sour issues 

 of swamp holes, ditches, and peat-bogs, and you will find 

 that the swiny people, with all their imputed laziness, will 

 transmute these matters into something that will make your 

 rejoicing wheat-fields, and clover, and corn, dress themselves 

 in a deeper green. Not a particle of manure should be suffered 

 to accumulate about house or barn, without being at once mixed 

 with this peat or some similar substance ; and not a load of 

 manure should be suffered to leave the yard, till it has been 

 compounded in a similar manner and made two, each of which 

 will be not less valuable than the original one. I may say, in 

 dismissing this topic, that any decaying animal substance, as 

 the blood of slaughtered animals, or putrifying flesh, and the 

 like, is invaluable for this purpose. We are told that "a dead 

 horse will convert twenty tons of peat into the best manure." 

 I suggest to you the propriety of setting all your dead horses 

 at work in this way, — and some of your live ones ! 



Another and most profitable suggestion of science, is with re- 

 gard to manures. The fertilizing matters which we carry from 

 the yard on to our lands, consist mainly of three elements, — 

 decayed vegetable matter, salts of various kinds, and ammonia; 

 so that if any one of your waggons, heavily laden with the 

 best products of the stable, were to be hailed by a " professor 

 of gas," for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the cargo, 

 he would tell you, to your surprise, that more than eighty parts 

 in a hundred of that load of clear majiure are water ! — just as 

 good as the average contents of the Connecticut, that rolls its 



