MANURING SUBSTANCES. 203 



sods and seaweed from the first day of January, to the last 

 day of December. I am satisfied that by next sprmg, I shall 

 have made six hundred loads. I have carted seaweed when 

 a man could do but little else but cart seaweed. Well, I 

 bought a farm that had been partitioned off by fences into 

 small lots, and those fences I removed. The old custom always 

 was to plough toward the fence, and of course it has made 

 ridges three feet high and five feet wide. When I removed the 

 fences, and made the lots in a different shape, these came right 

 in the way of the mowing machine ; and if I undertook to 

 plough, they would be very poor places to plough over. Con- 

 sequently, I have hauled them off into the hog-pens and the 

 barn cellars. This fall, I have collected hundreds of loads of 

 sods from those ridges into a heap, to have' it ready when I 

 want it hereafter ; for we all know that for many vegetables 

 and plants, and grape-vines, rotted and decomposed sod is the 

 very best material that can be found — much better than any 

 manures. For strawberries, I know it is better than any 

 ammoniacal manures. 



It seems to me, from my experience, that farmers should 

 always be collecting everything in the nature of manure. I 

 throw but little peat into my hennery, but I have the manure 

 taken out frequently and composted with peat and covered peat 

 over it, so as to save it all. I do the same with the contents of 

 my privy. It is about seven feet long by twelve feet wide, and 

 so placed that everything runs out of the vault but the solids ; 

 and therefore I throw in peat every little while, and once or 

 twice a year it is taken out and composted. I make every year 

 enough to manure a whole acre of land — as much as I should 

 have to pay fifteen dollars for if I bought guano. You can 

 make ten dollars worth of manure a year from twenty-five hens, 

 if you have the peat or good rich sods such as I have to com- 

 post with it. We all know that if we can make a load of 

 manure, twenty bushels, it is worth a dollar or a dollar and a 

 half ; and we know that if we do not have this manure we have 

 no vegetables. The gentleman spoke about root crops. Of 

 course we want to raise a root crop and a hay crop, and that is 

 about all. I can buy corn cheaper than I can raise it. I can 

 raise roots equal to nine tons to the acre — certainly that is a 

 paying crop — when I can raise but three tons of hay to the acre. 



