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will produce a compost invaluable to the ao^riculturalist. I hope the Society will appoint a 

 committee to investigate this matter. 



All the weeds of a farmer should be carried to the barn yard. If too far removed, they 

 may be collected in a corner of the field and converted into manure in forty hours, thus : — 

 Form a bed of weeds twelve inches thick and cover them with a thin layer of quicklime 

 one and a half inches in thickness — then weeds and lime in succession until all your weeds 

 are disposed of — after which cover the whole with muck or ch arcoal dust ; fermentation 

 immediately takes place, greaA heat ensues, and if the heap is not well covered to keep out 

 air, ignition is possible. 



Farmers meet with serious loss by feeding their stock with the haulm of potatoes, cabbage 

 beet and turnip tops, for the reason that they contain at least seventy per cent, of water, 

 consequently are poor feed for animals. On the other hand, if buried or ploughed under, their 

 moisture causes rapid decomposition, and the manure, for reasons before stated, is more 

 valuable than that of farm yard. In Italy the inhabitants are in the habit of sowing 

 tares, buckwheat and other crops which, when in flower, are ploughed in for manure. They 

 seemed particularly partial to lupins, which extract azotized matters from the atmosphere and 

 yield them to the earth. The seeds of lupins are frequently boiled and sold as manure. It 

 grows like the bean, bearing pods, but it is so bitter that animals will not eat it. 



I know it is unpopular to say aught against guano, a manure so much favored in 

 foreign countries, still, as I was one who received a parcel from this Society to 

 experiment with, I am in duty bound, after having tried it to my heart's content, to 

 state at least the result. In the first place my gardener planted three rows of onions 

 across a bed sixty-seven feet long in drills, which were partially filled with guano, and 

 alongside three drills the same length without any manure, the bed being rich. The 

 result was those without grew the best and produced the largest bulbs ; some of the other 

 were killed. He planted three rows of beets sixty-seven feet long with and three without ; 

 many of those planted with it died outright. He planted three rows of salad with and three 

 without; those with guano died in three days. Three rows of potatoes were planted with and 

 three without, and no perceptible difference observed. Ten rows of corn, one hundred feet 

 long, were planted with guano, and ten rows, one hundred feet long, with soot ; those with 

 guano died to a plant. Lima beans were killed by it, grass was killed, cabbages improved, 

 cauliflowers injured, peas destroyed, strawberries injured, raspberries injured. It is useless to 

 mention other articles, but safe to say every garden product I used it upon, and they were 



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