APPLICATION OF MANURE. 231 



OX cart-loads of manure on four acres of sod ground, ploughed the 

 usual depth, five or six inches, soil stiff and heavy ; and for aught I 

 have ever seen of its eifects, there might as well have been a funeral 

 ceremony at the time of the burying. The season was somewhat 

 wet. What became of the salts of the manure ? Planted with pota- 

 toes which were poor, then sowed with rye which was poor, and the 

 grass which followed was not as good as it grew before the plough- 

 ing. Ploughing in manure on dry land may do better ; but I doubt 

 whether one-fourtli is ever realized from it that ought to be, if plants 

 derive any consioerable part of their support from the atmosphere. 

 1 once put about five bushels of strong horse manure in one heap 

 on a timothy meadow, and spread the surrounding parts wiih like 

 manure, ten two-horse loads to the acre The manure heap made 

 I he grass but little heavier on its borders than it was elsewhere, the 

 ten loads to the acre having brought the land near to its maximum 

 of production (three and a half tons to the acre). Three years after, 

 the grass was little or no heavier where the manure heap was, than 

 on the parts adjacent. Nineteen twentieths of the manure, then, 

 was lost ; which is proof positive to my mind, that it is necessary to 

 secure its valuable properties very soon, or they are lost. 



Here the farmer requires chemical aid ; and great would be the 

 obligations of the people to that man who could discover, and would 

 make known some cheap and practical way of combining and se- 

 curing for the use of plants, the fertilizing properties of manure. 

 A free use of plastoi* would, no doubt, effect much by taking up 

 the ammonia as it formed : if so, it ought to be sprinkled over the 

 yards frequently, and mixed with the manure heap ; and then when 

 it was applied to the land, would it not leach away into the earth 

 the same as any other salts ? 



In a practical way, and without asking the chemists any thing 

 about it, I think farmers may double the value of their manure 

 by taking my advice in its application, where the supply is limited. 

 I presume the supply on most farms does not equal one load per 

 acre yearly, for the land in grass and grain ; that of the land plough- 

 ed, only a portion of it gets a sprinkling in a round of crops ; and 

 that if the corn ground is covered, there is none left for wheat. I 

 ^pow that most theoretical and many practical farmers recommend 

 the application of all the manure of the farm to the hoed crops ; and 

 |hus wear it out, as I think, without securing such a return from it 

 as will leave the land better than it found it. 



