1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



127 



the soil, or -whether they should be applied to the 

 land, and plowed in, so that fermentation might 

 take place in the soil. In either case, it is probable 

 that different kinds of fermentation would result. 

 In the latter case, the fermentation would not be 

 active, and would not evolve ammonia. It is a ques- 

 tion whether ammonia or nitric acid is the best 

 form in w^hich nitrogen can be applied to plants. 

 If ammonia is the best, the process which produces 

 it is to be preferred. There might be danger that 

 if manures were plowed in before fermentation 

 took place they would work down to so great a 

 depth that they would lose their utility to plants. 

 He did not consider the question well settled, 

 though it is an important one. 



Mr. Hall, of Bradford, was called on next, but 

 he said he had never used muck to any great ex- 

 tent because it was not found in his vicincity. He 

 had however seen its effects in a nursery on high 

 and dry ground, and never saw so handsome apple 

 trees of two years growth as he saw there. About 

 four inches of meadow muck were put at the bot- 

 tom of the trenches in which the trees were set out. 

 He then referred to another application of muck 

 where it is used about some young trees on setting 

 them out, and by which every tree was killed. 

 This shows the difference in different kinds of muck. 



Mr. DoroE again spoke, expressing the hope 

 that something might be found to hold the ammo- 

 nia. He had used saw-dust. He did not think old 

 garden soil worth the expense of moving it to the 

 compost heap or into the barn-yard. 



He hoped more attention would be given to sav- 

 ing liquid manures. He then stated how a friend 

 of his in Berkshire was saving all the manure from 

 800 sheep by box feeding. He believed he had 

 not overstated the amount lost in the common- 

 wealth every year, by not saving manure. He 

 claimed also that farming had absolutely run down 

 this side of the Connecticut river, and is not in as 

 good a state now as it was twenty-five years ago. 



The value of subsoil as an absorbent was ques- 

 tioned by Mr. Hall. Mr. Dodge repHed that he 

 had tested it, and he knew nothing better for the 

 purpose. He had tried it where Hme would not 

 stop the offensive smell of a yard where beef cattle 

 were butchered, and it succeeded perfectly well. 

 Perhaps the subsoil of Worcester county is pecuUar 

 in that respect. 



Dr. FisiiEK gave some of his experience on the 

 subject of saving manures. Before he commenced 

 he made himself familiar with the literature on the 

 subject, and then built a barn with a cellar cement- 

 ed on the bottom and sides so as to be entirely 

 ■water-tight, having a caj)acity of about 15,000 gal- 

 Ions. Over this the floor upon which the cattle 

 stand is placed, having about four feet of the width 

 of the floor, where the hind feet of the cattle stand, 

 made of oak and scantling, with spaces of an inch 



and three-fourths between them, through which all 

 the solid and liquid manure may drop into the cellar. 

 The cattle stand upon this with no bedding, the 

 place where their fore feet are, being always dry 

 and clean. The sink drain from the house runs to 

 this cellar, and water from the roof of the barn and 

 sheds, so that the manure in the cellar is always 

 covered with hquid. The cattle are kept stalled, 

 throughout the year, except that the cows are let 

 out for exercise, and the horses for use. This liquid 

 manure is pimiped out, by a chain pump, and car- 

 ried off in a box which holds a hundred gallons. This 

 box can be filled and carried thirty rods and spread 

 upan grass ground in fifteen minutes. 



He considered the hquid worth as much as the 

 same quantity of solid manure. The liquid ma- 

 nure may be applied to vines and trees at any time 

 in a very diluted state. He would apply it to grass 

 in the spring and fall, and immediately after cut- 

 ting off the first crop of grass. As the cattle in the 

 stable stand with their heads some four feet from 

 the openings into the cellar, he had seen no bad 

 effects upon their health ; nor could he discover 

 any smell from the cellar. His pigs have a stall 

 where their manure drops into the same cellar, and 

 his fowls, — some 250 — have a separate house. 



Mr. W. J. BucKMLxsTER suggested that there 

 might be danger in the application of manure in a 

 too concentrated form. He had found liquid ma- 

 nures to make jjlants grow faster than any other. 

 As ventilation, for the health of animals, was im- 

 portant, he thought it would be better to have the 

 cellar for the manure in a separate building. 



Mr. Brown, the Chairman, suggested that farm- 

 ers must exercise a sound judgment in the selection 

 and use of manures, and particularly of muck. 

 The farmer has no mathematical rules to guide him, 

 but must be guided by the light of experience, in a 

 great degree. Meadow mud should be hauled in 

 the winter into heaps, where it may freeze so as to 

 kill the bulbous roots of the swamp grasses it con- 

 tains. As a deodorizer, meadow muck, when dry, 

 is very valuable. There is no substance, excepting 

 charcoal, which is equal to it. He said he expected 

 to see the day when this muck would be sold in 

 Boston, at a high profit, as a deodorizer. 



Mr. Freeman, of Orleans, stated that the farm- 

 ers in his vicinity had long been in the habit of 

 using muck in connection with barn-yard manure, 

 and they considered it equal to stable manure. 



Mr. BucKMiNSTER remarked that the meadow 

 mud, properly called peat muck, was that only 

 which was good. He considered the other kind 

 useless. 



Mr. BRO^VN said that the best peat muck, ap- 

 peared, under a microscope, like thousands of nee- 

 dles, which are in fact the fine roots, so fine as not 

 to be seen by the naked eye. That which has sand 

 in it is least valuable. 



