192 ARTIFICIAL MANURE, 



and gladdening his land. For four years, and it is 

 believed his crops will compare with any of the best 

 cultivators around him, he has not used a spoonful 

 of manure made by any animal, walking either on 

 two legs or on four. He keeps eleven horses, four 

 cows, one hundred hogs ; he uses not a shovelful 

 of their manure, but selling that, he uses peat and 

 swamp muck, mixed with his spent barilla ashes. 

 The proportions are, one part of spent ashes to three 

 of peat, dug up in the fall, mixed in the spring. 

 After shovelling two or three times, it is spread and 

 ploughed in. The effect is immediate, and so far, 

 lasting. The effects of this spent ashes alone on 

 sandy loam, are excellent ; it makes the whole quite 

 "salvy." 



213. The composition of spent ashes has already 

 been alluded to ; a certain portion is carbonate of 

 lime ; it is well known, that as such, it would pro- 

 duce no better effects than so much chalk. A large 

 part of silicate of soda exists in the spent ashes. 

 This is decomposed by the carbonic acid of the air, 

 the alkali then acts on geine, but this action is greatly 

 assisted by the carbonate of lime. It is perhaps the 

 most powerful agent in the decomposition of the sil- 

 icate of soda. Here then the action of carbonates 

 on silicates tells. And it may be worth while to b« 



