170 MANURE 



Happily in this part of our country, peat bogs, hassocks, 

 turf, sa\v-dust, spent and decayed bark, underbrush of pines, 

 and the rubbish left after gleaning the fagots where wood 

 land has been cleared, are abundant. Make these into small 

 piles with loam, giving enough combustible matter to allow 

 the whole, when covered with sods and fired, to burn slow^ly 

 like a charcoal pit, a slow, smothered fire, burning without 

 consuming, till the whole soil with which the peat or earth, 

 &c., were mixed, has been baked quite up to a low, red heat, 

 just visible in the night. 



This mass of baked soil and charcoal will answer very 

 well for the speedy conversion of the few loads of night-soil, 

 which small farmers may collect into a dry, useable manure, 

 on the plan which has been laid down. 



To those who undertake the removal of larger quantities, 

 a general account of the furnace used for charring soil, the 

 mode of conducting the whole process, from the collection of 

 the raw material, from its legion of city and town deposito- 

 ries, to its final state of a dry, inodorous manure, full of 

 agricultural vigor, may be an inducement to undertake its 

 preparation. 



First. Be it understood, that a few pounds of copperas, 

 dissolved in a pail of water, say half a pound to a gallon, 

 will, when thrown into an ordinary vault, while its contents 

 are being removed, completely deodorize that, no noxious 

 gases escape, polluting the air, and making night more terri- 

 ble than day to the dweller in crowded cities. 



This would be an incidental benefit to all, but to him who, 

 by contract, abates the nuisance of an overflowing vault, it is 

 money in his pocket. The addition of copperas-water actu- 

 ally adds a direct value to the night-soil. The ammonia so 

 volatile, the sulphuretted compounds so horrible, are seized 

 by the copperas water, they are retained long enough to be 



