VALUE OF HEN MANURE. 199 



when it is carted in there, when it comes out it is all discolored ; 

 and oftentimes I find a puddle of urine that has worked out 

 from the manure heap in the centre of the cellar. Now, when 

 I prepared my cellar, I cemented the floor, and there is no leak- 

 age, and the liquids are all retained. I value the sand that is 

 filled in that way quite as highly to go on my low lands as I do 

 the droppings from the cattle. 



There are various ways, as has been suggested, in which the 

 farmer may increase the quantity of his manure. I was rather 

 surprised myself, this last season, at the effect of certain 

 manures upon the ground. I ploughed up a piece of ground 

 of about two acres, and carted on about thirty loads to the acre, 

 and at planting time I took the hen manure that had been made 

 during the year and dropped it into the hill — perhaps as much 

 as a man would take up in his fingers. What my hens made 

 during the year carried me over an acre of ground, perhaps. 

 When we came to use tliis hen manure, I put in three rows of 

 potatoes through the field, and planted the rest of the field 

 without anything in the hills ; but the field otherwise was 

 treated all alike. Upon gathering the crop, we estimated that 

 we got sixty per cent, more where the hen manure was put 

 than where it was not put. You perceive it was a very great 

 increase in the crop — altogether from the use of that hen 

 manure. That might have been increased in quantity, as sug- 

 gested by the chairman, by scattering loam or something under 

 the hens at the time of the droppings ; but there was a query 

 in my mind, when the remark was made, whether it would be 

 any essential benefit. We should be simply carrying dirt to the 

 hen-roost and carrying it back to the field, and it would require 

 a greater quantity when the manure was put on, so that we 

 should lose the transportation. All the good qualities of the 

 manure were retained in it, and we could not get any more than 

 that by putting in the dirt. 



All the manure that is dropped by my cattle and horses goes 

 directly into this cellar. I am not in the habit of housing my 

 cows in summer ; I let them lie in the yard, where they have 

 shelter, and there they make something like a hundred loads of 

 manure during the season. That goes to my grass, also, and 

 my hog manure I put upon my cornfield. I think that is far 

 better than what we could make at the barn for increasing the 



