10 MR. newell's address. 



go to the trouble of covering the dung-heap daily "with dirt in the win- 

 ter season. Where cows are yarded in summer, as in the case of 

 most farms, a good coating of some porous substance that will ab- 

 sorb all the droppings from the stock, is perhaps the best means to 

 preserve a good supply of compost for top-dressing low grass-lands in 

 the fall, or to lay over for spring use. Frequent additions are per- 

 haps preferable to a deep bed at any one time, and a thorough plough- 

 ing before a rain is serviceable. But Avherethe cattle-stalls are plac- 

 ed over a cellar, or where there are conductors to drain off the hquid 

 droppings to a cistern, putting the stock in the stalls is unquestionably 

 the best mode to save the manure. 



I will give you the result of my observations on the best mode of 

 applying manure, in order that those more experienced may show a 

 better method. It is to draw all the winter-dung (made by the cat- 

 tle,) upon grass-land about to be ploughed for a hoed crop; about 

 twenty loads to the acre. I would delay moving it to the land, as 

 late as is prudent, to give time to i)lough it under before planting- 

 time. I would spread it no faster than to keep ahead of the plough. 

 I should prefer to plough one day, and plant the next. The later 

 you plough, the more green herbage is there to unite with the dung 

 and produce decomposition. I would then spread a light coat upon 

 the furroAV, of sLx or eight loads per acre, of muck drawn to the yard 

 the previous fall, which had absorbed the liquids in the yard. This 

 method I have found, with- a hand-full of ashes to the hill after the 

 corn was up, would produce a good crop. The sward is not disturb- 

 ed until the following spring. It is then ploughed deep enough to 

 turn up the sod, the manure, and an inch or two of the soil below. 

 It is sowed with small grain and grass seed, as early as the season 

 will permit, with a bushel or two of lime or ashes per acre. Land 

 broke up late in the spring, will be more rotten than that broke the 

 previous fall, after vegetation has ceased growing. This one manur- 

 ing is all for a crop of corn, grain, and four crops of hay. I never 

 have succeeded well with a grain crop, where any manure was put, 

 unless fully rotted. All the manure made in summer, is used as top- 

 dressing for grass-land never planted, but ploughed up in the fall, 

 and sowed doAvn directly to grass.. I have lands still lower which are 

 never ploughed, where the scrapings from the gutters by the sides of 

 the road, and other loam at command, are spread without any thing 

 added to them. This is the substance of my manuring, save an acre 



