64 AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



or barn-yard manure while it is yet cool, and not after ferment- 

 ation has made much progress, or while the process is going 

 on, otherwise it drives off instead of preserving the ammonia. 



ASH COMPOST. 



Ash compost may be made with equal parts of unleached 

 ashes and gypsum, carefully mixed or sifted together. The 

 mixture should be kept dry, and applied to crops for which it 

 is suitable before rain, either full-handed, broadcast, or a good 

 handful to each hill spread over it. 



GUANO COMPOST, &C. 



Guano or unleached hen manure, mixed with one half the 

 bulk of ground gypsum and four or five times the bulk of light, 

 rich loam, the whole being thoroughly mixed and sifted to- 

 gether, and allowed to lie for a few weeks in a dry place, being 

 turned once or twice in that time, will become thoroughly in- 

 corporated, and may be applied, even by inexperienced hands, 

 without the risk which often attends their use in an unmixed 

 state. When applied, this compost should be covered, and not 

 merely spread upon the hill like ash compost. 



For top-dressing grain, for grass, or fruit-trees, guano should 

 always be well sifted and powdered, and mixed with at least so 

 much common earth as may serve to keep down its unpleasant 

 dust in sowing, as well as to prevent loss by wind. In this 

 state it may be used at the rate of two, three, or four hundred 

 pounds to. the acre. 



For flower composts, see directions under that head, p. 443. 



LIQUID MANURE.. 



Ordinary liquid manure is the drainage of the stable or the 

 barn-yard, preserved in a tank or pond-hole, and applied by 

 means of a sprinkling-cart or watering-pot. Of the drainage 

 from the stable, each forty gallons may be reckoned worth as 

 much as an ordinary carman's load of manure. The value of 

 barn-yard drainings is very variable, depending on the form 

 and soil of the yard bottom, amount of exposure, and quantity 

 of rain. 



