198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



basin is a peat bed, I can't tell yoii how deep, for I never have 

 found the bottom, although we liave oftentimes dug down 

 several feet, and have never reached the bottom of the peat. 

 There is also on the farm a hill of sand. Tliey are both very 

 convenient to the barn, and to our stables. I have in former 

 years been more in the habit of using peat than I am at present. 

 In the fall of the year, after having cleaned out my cellar, 

 which is forty by sixty-five feet, I cart into it perhaps sixty or 

 seventy loads of just what I please to put in, and I please to put 

 in sand or muck, according as I am going to use the manure on 

 one portion of my land or another. If I am going to put it on 

 stiff or low land, I cart in sand ; if I am going to put it on my 

 liglit land, I cart in muck, and I put some in my yard where I 

 herd my cows. But I have turned my attention more, of late 

 years, to manuring my low lands and turning my uplands 

 into pasture. My practice in manuring is this. In the spring, 

 I take off the top of my manure heaps, and place it upon my 

 planting ground. I do not plant so much as many farmers ; 

 I do not receive that benefit from the use of the hoe that many 

 farmers do. I usually put on my planting ground some thirty 

 cart-loads to the acre, and our carts usually hold from twenty- 

 five to thirty bushels. My former practice was to plough it in 

 rather deep, but I came to the conclusion that I did not reap 

 that benefit from the manure that I ought, and therefore I now 

 lay it nearer the surface. As time has progressed, I have been 

 laying it nearer and nearer to the surface. I am now getting 

 out of the way of the hoed crops, for the reason that I cannot 

 make them pay, and I have this fall laid upon my old fields — 

 fields that have been cultivated fields, that bear what we term 

 herdsgrass or timothy — about as much manure as I would if I 

 was going" to plant corn. I think I shall receive more benefit 

 from my manure in that way than from a hoed crop. Root 

 crops I have nothing to do with ; they are a hoed crop, and I 

 cannot make them pay. 



My cattle stand on each side of the barn, my driveway goes 

 through the centre, and I have a leanto on each side. I have 

 often noticed in the spring, when I have had sand in the cellar 

 through the winter, that the liquids that have passed down 

 through the floor have so saturated that sand that it is discol- 

 ored clear to the centre. Although it may be clean, good sand 



