ESSEX SOCIETY. 93 



it is seldom used in any other way. It cannot be too highly 

 recommended. 



Animals fed on rich food, make far the most valuable manure. 

 This will serve to show why the manure from the stye is so 

 fertilizing. Swine are fed on a great variety of rich food. The 

 actual profit of raising them, arises mainly from the amount of 

 substances they will mix together, and make into good manure. 

 Let the stye be supplied, at intervals, with mud, loam, and other 

 vegetable matter, and farmers will not complain of the cost of 

 these animals. 



Liquid manures are highly useful to grasses. Care should 

 be taken to apply them, also, to the compost heap. The rich- 

 ness of manure from the sty, is owning mostly to the great 

 quantity of liquid matter. Hence the importance of adding a 

 great variety of vegetable substances, loam, and mud. In a 

 word, it may be said, that all liquid manures contain a large 

 amount of nitrogen, which is one principal ingredient of ammo- 

 nia, to which we have alluded. The importance of saving the 

 liquid of the stables, either with the compost, or to be applied 

 by itself, may be seen, also, in the fact that the exceeding rich- 

 ness of guano, and the ordure of all fowls and birds, is due 

 to the union of the liquids and solids. Spent ley from the 

 soap boiler, is also a powerful liquid application. It shows its 

 good effects for years, when properly applied. 



After fermentation has taken place in animal manures, in the 

 compost or elsewhere, they may be spread without much loss 

 by evaporation, and hence it matters not whether the top dress- 

 ing is applied in the autumn or in the spring. Plaster is better 

 spread in the spring, when the moisture of the earth makes it 

 immediately available. Not so with other manures. Some 

 prefer the autumn for spreading these, while others prefer the 

 spring, just before the thick grass surrounds and protects them 

 from the sun and wind. The soil, in autumn, is not injured 

 by the loaded cart, as is apt to be the case in spring. Others 

 still, apply them after the first mowing, and before the summer 

 rains. The new crop preserves the manure from drying up and 

 wasting. This, however, is ordinarily too busy a season to at- 

 tend to it with convenience. 



