1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



43 



Fijr the New England Farmer. 



THE MUCK BED, AND ITS FUTURE 

 PSOSPECTS. 



Mr. Editor : — Twenty-five years ago, the low 

 lands in New England were a very difi'erent affair 

 from what they now are. They were then con- 

 sidered great useless affairs, good for nothing, 

 unless for growing Tamarack, poles and black ash 

 basket timber, which could be obtained only, as 

 people then thought, in severely frozen times in 

 winter, or, when excessively dry in summer. 

 Every spring, somebody's cattle got mired on 

 their margin, in their exertion to grasp the first 

 green tuft of wild grass, and then, when the ani- 

 mal was once ashore, what wishes that the swamp 

 would sink into a clear pond of water. 



Times change. The market for wood increases, 

 and the sv/amp is, on a cold winter's day, full of 

 the music of axes. Tree and shrub suffer the 

 same fate. When the sun returns on his north- 

 ern visit, he sends searching rays of light and 

 heat into the hitherto impenetrable moor, to scan 

 the changes winter has wrought upon its pro- 

 ducts. The bogs shrink, and the quagmires evap- 

 orate under his penetrating glances. Cattle no 

 longer mire there, and tall grass and weeds wave 

 luxuriantly, to tell that deep fertility gathers at 

 their roots. What a beautiful lesson to man, of 

 the value of the eld, deprecated swamp ! Fertili- 

 ty, strong and durable, lies in its cold bosom. 



The first time we ever heard of the application 

 of muck as a manure, was many years ago, when 

 we saw an individual going two miles to a swamp 

 to get a load for his garden. He described his 

 course of management as follows : The muck, 

 with some three or four bushels of ashes to a load, 

 was allowed to lie only a day or two to dry. The 

 compost was then put under cucumbers and spread 

 for a top-dressing on radish beds, when prepared 

 for the seed. No insect destroyed plants sown 

 or planted on lands thus prepared, and they grew 

 with peculiar freshness and vigor. Its value for 

 the kitchen garden v/as, by one experiment, 

 placed beyond a doubt. 



In passing through the Shaker settlement in 

 New Lebanon some autumns since, we saw some 

 fine beds of compost of which muck was the base, 

 and in the same field, men were employed in 

 opening holes five or six feet square. Subse- 

 quently we passed that way, and found apple 

 trees standing where these holes were opened, 

 and that the compost had been liberally applied 

 around the roots of those trees in setting. These 

 trees now show for themselves, showing the 

 growth and vigor of trees in a new and favorable 

 soil. 



Equally favorable results from the application 

 of muck have been noticed in other places and 

 circumstances. Still, with oceans and continents 

 of it in every neighborhood, and on almost every 

 farm, the agricultural community has been slow 

 to adopt its use. 



But a new era is fast opening in this matter. 

 The summer and fall of 1858 have been favorable 

 to the progress of farm labor in general, and it 

 may be, farmers have had more time than usual 

 to turn aside from the hitherto usual routine, and 

 work out improvements. At any rate, it is a 

 pleasant certainty, that a A'astly increased quan- 

 tity of muck has been taken to the uplands for 



composting, over that of any past year, for now, 

 almost every farmer has a good pile, and many 

 three or four stout piles. This is but the i)egi.'i- 

 ning of progress in the matter. Another year 

 will bring them a full reward for all their labor 

 and cost in the matter, and yet good effects wit' 

 be in store for years to come, and the effect once 

 seen, extra exertions will be made in successive 

 years to increase the quantity annually, until the 

 uplands shall have been well fattened from the 

 richness of the cold, wet, miasma-breeding swamp ; 

 and hereafter, wlien the farmer goes to purchase 

 land, one of the earliest inquiries will be, is there 

 a muck bed on the place'} a consideration next in 

 importance to the supply of wood and water ; for 

 a very great proportion of the future agricultu- 

 ral fertility of New England lies in her now prof- 

 itless swamps and quagm.ires. 



Reader, we fully anticipate the exclamation 

 you are about to utter. We expect, as a matter 

 of course, to be denounced as visionary, eccentric, 

 and all such pretty things. But what then? We 

 predicate our opinion from facts that already ex- 

 ist ; that greater and more astonishing facts will, 

 from similar causes, develop themselves, not in 

 a year, or it may be not in a decade, but in the 

 course of sure and untiring progress, with the 

 assurance that he who labors first and most earn- 

 estly, will earliest reap the reward. w. B. 



liichmond, Kov. 23, 1858. 



For the New England Farmer. 



MATERIALS FOB ROOFING. 



This is the subject of an article in your Novem- 

 ber number, and while I cheerfully agree with 

 the author, so far as he compares slate with any 

 or all other materials for roofing, in this climate, 

 (New England,) when he takes into account ex- 

 pense, durability and security from fires, and 

 while I also agree with him in his comparison 

 between the slates of Vermont and those of 

 Maine, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, &c., 

 yet I find him in error when he settles down to 

 compare the slates of Vermont. There is no 

 question but that poor slate will absorb more 

 water than good slate, neither is there any doubt 

 but that a soft, poor quality of slate stone, requires 

 a greater thickness, and consequently much 

 greater weight than a moderately hard stone of 

 pure quality. I am well acquainted with the 

 slate made at sixteen different quarries, all of 

 which are within a range of four miles from the 

 railroad station at Hydeville, Rutland Co., Vt., of 

 which the Glen Lake and Eagle, (which your cor- 

 respondent asserts are the best.) are a part. The 

 Eagle slate are a good slate, weighing, on an av- 

 erage, 700 pounds to the square. The Glen Lake 

 slate average, in Aveight, about 580 to the 

 square. There is another kind of slate far supe- 

 rior to either of these two, in my estimation, so 

 far as uniformness of color, thickness and strength 

 are concerned. These slates arc made by the 

 Forest Slate Company, but in the immediate vi- 

 cinity are better known as the "Humphrey slate." 

 They are of a uniform purple color, split true, 

 and the stone is of such purity that thcr^ is no 

 difliculty in spliting the slate all of one thickness. 

 Many of these shites, I am told, have been made 

 during the past season in Massachusetts, at and 



