APPENDIX. 279 



tecting crop, or subsequent barrowings to cover it in the soil, be- 

 came apparently sun-baked so hard as to defy, for a time at least, 

 the softening action of water. This hardening effect was not ob- 

 served to take place with the muck treated with the dry ashes, or 

 in the manure compost, and may have arisen from the insufficient 

 quantity of alkali used in the case mentioned. 



In another case, one lb. of soda ash, and one lb. of soft soap were 

 mixed with four bushels of muck, and all put in a fifty gallon tub, 

 and the tub filled with water, and left to stand five or six days with 

 an occasional stirring ; at the end of that period, the dark colored 

 water was dipped off and applied to various garden plants and 

 vegetables, and the tub again filled with water, and the muck stir- 

 red up, and after a day or two the water was again dipped off and 

 applied as before, and the tub again filled with water. This pro- 

 cess was continued for two or three weeks in the early part of the 

 season, and the muck, though gradually wasting, without additional 

 alkali, continued to ferment from time to time, and yield black 

 liqnor, to appearance nearly as rich as the first. Kapid growth of 

 the plants followed in all cases when it was applied, and its effects 

 upon a lot of onions would have been ascertained with considerable 

 accuracy, had not a " hired man" took it into his head that the few 

 rows purposely left for comparison, were suffering by unwitting 

 neglect, and gave them a " double dose," thereby equalizing the 

 growth, and sacrificing the experiment to his honest notions of fair 

 dealing, which required that all should be treated alike. In another 

 case, a muck compost dressing, formed by previously slacking quick- 

 lime with a strong brine of common salt, to disengage the acid of 

 the salt, that its soda might act on the muck when in contact, was 

 applied as a top-dressing for corn, without any perceptible effect, 

 perhaps for want of skill in compounding. 



Facts abundantly testify to the fertilizing properties of swamp 

 muck and peat, when brought to a right state, and the subject of 

 your inquiry perhaps yields to no other, at the present time, in point 

 of importance, to our good old Commonwealth. Taking your esti- 

 mate of the weight of fresh-dug muck or peat, and Professor Hitch- 

 cock's estimate of the quantity in the state, and the saving of one 

 cent per ton in the expense of neutralizing its acidity, and fitting it 



