HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 145 



&c, and mix with salt and lime, in proportion of one part salt, 

 to two of lime. The pile to be formed in alternate layers ; first 

 the weeds, then the mud, then salt and lime mixed to form one 

 layer, farm-yard manure another, and so on to the end, observing 

 to keep the pile protected from the rain by covering. A chemi- 

 cal acti6n takes place; the mass swells, and the salt is gradually 

 decomposed ; and, in the course of three months, if the pile is 

 suffered to remain undisturbed, both the salt and the lime nearly 

 disappear, and two new substances are formed by the combina- 

 tions into which their constituents have entered, viz : soda and 

 chloride of lime ; both of which are excellent manures. "A com- 

 pound of salt and soot," says an English farmer, "possesses 

 most extraordinary fertilizing effects; but all these mixtures, to 

 preserve their fertilizing properties, should carefully be protected 

 from the rain, to prevent the different salts from being dissolved 

 and leached out of the mass, and thus rendering it almost entirely 

 inert and useless." 



Your committee have time to recommend but one article (from 

 the great variety which might be named) as a stimulating ma- 

 nure, which they believe has not been much used by the New 

 England farmer — the sulphate of potass, or common saltpetre, 

 in its crude state, as it is frequently imported and furnished at a 

 cost from three to four dollars per hundred in times of peace. It 

 is very highly recommended by the English farmers, to be used 

 at the rate of one hundred to one and a half hundred to the acre, 

 to be sowed like plaster in moist weather ; it has also been used 

 by one of your committee, with marked good effects. 



Mr. Kimberly, an English farmer, says, " one hundred pounds 

 of saltpetre, sowed on an acre of sandy soil, is equal, in its fer- 

 tilizing effects, to twenty-five cubic yards of horse-dung. One 

 of its excellences consists in its enriching powers continuing 

 longer than any other manure — even for several years." 



One word further in relation to the importance of covering 

 manures, to protect them from rain. It is believed by your com- 

 mittee, that seven tenths of the farmers of New England, leave 

 their stable manure (which is the best they make) exposed in 

 the open air to all the vicissitudes of the weather, to be drenched 

 and leached by the rain and snow. Most of the barns are con- 



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