SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 357 



are no belter than some no-horns or no-names. What propriety is 

 there, then, in supposing that superior stock will be obtained from 

 such a source. True, a poor thorough-bred animal will be njore 

 likely to produce good stock than one not thorough-bred, because 

 the excellence of some ancestor may appear in his issue ; Ij^t it is 

 great folly to breed from a poor animal of any blood. We hear 

 people complain that Berkshire hogs are no better than others ; 

 while others prefer them to every thing else, and with reason on 

 both sides. 



[From the Maine Cultivator.] 



SOAP-SUDS — COMPOST. 

 This is, perhaps, one of the most powerfully fertilizing articles 

 produced on a farm. It contains the food of plants in a state of 

 almost perfect solution, and consequently in a condition the most 

 easy to be appropriated and assimilated when applied as a stimulant 

 to vegetable life, in order to avail himself of this important source 

 of wealth, the farmer should provide himself with a tank of a size 

 sufficient not only to contain the suds made in the family, but a 

 large quantity of other materials, such as sods, turf, bones, ashes, 

 straw and muck ; in short any substance not actually and neces- 

 sarily prejudicial to vegetation, and which may, partly by imbibing 

 the liquid, and partly by chemical action, become an ingredient in 

 the food of plants. The tank or cistern provided for this purpose, 

 should be proportioned to the size of the family, and so situated as 

 to admit of an easy approach with the cart. It should also be so 

 constructed as to be exposed as little as possible either to the wash- 

 ing of heavy rains, or the influence of the sun and air. W'e have 

 often been surprised, on visiting the premises and farm yards of 

 some v\ho have enjoyed an honorable reputation for economy in 

 other matters, to find them cluttered and encumbered with useless 

 rubbish, which a little time, properly devoted, would have reduced 

 to a healthy and valuable assistant in the fertilization of a perhaps 

 unfertile and unproductive farm. Bones, shells, chips, are all ex- 

 cellent ingredients in the compost heap, and will well reward any 

 person for the trouble and expense of gathering them up. It is often 

 the case that soil in low places by the road side, which receives the 

 wash from the highway, may be converted into a valuable stimulant 

 simply by throwing it into lieaps. This, however, should be done 

 in the fall, as the wash during the summer adds greatly to its stimu- 

 lant powers, and the operation of the frost in winter conduces greatly 

 to its improvement, by thoroughly breaking up and disintegrating 

 the earthy particles composing the mass. Such soil, or indeed any 

 other, moderately indued with fertilizing properties, and the powers 

 of imbibing and retaining moisture, may be greatly increased in 

 value by being placed in a situation where it will remain open to 

 the action of rain and the clastic gases. 



