122 



Importance of Manure. 



V0L.V. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Importance of Manure. 



Sir, — A friend has put into my hands a 

 book, recordint^ the history of a remarkable 

 individual, a Swiss farmer, by the name of 

 Kliyog'g : it was published forty years ago, 

 but it contains instruction and intbnnation, 

 with food for reflection, which will be ever 

 new and of the highest interest to every 

 practical agriculturist; and I therefore feel a 

 great desire to copy a part of the first chaft- 

 ter, " on the value and importance of ma- 

 nure," which will, I conceive, be read by a 

 very great portion of your subscribers to 

 much advantage, and be the means of leading 

 us all to reflect, how little of the value and 

 importance of that chief agent in agriculture 

 is yet known or cared for. 



Kliyogg's family consisted of a wife, a bro- 

 ther and his wife, and their two families of 

 eleven children, all, except one daughter, 

 mere infants. His farm, of eighty-four acres 

 of cleared land, was so poor that it would 

 support but three oxen, four cows, one horse, 

 and two hogs — in all, but ten head of live- 

 stock — but, from this wretched little impo- 

 verished spot, he contrived to procure the 

 means of subsistence for such a numerous 

 colony, and eventually riches — but here com- 

 mences tlie chapter "on the importance of 

 manure." 



" It is not from grazing, therefore, that 

 Kliyogg expects advantage, but from an ar- 

 ticle of more advantage, and more to be de- 

 pended upon, the increase of dung for ma- 

 nure. He finds his horse more expensive 

 than serviceable, and determines to sell him 

 and buy oxen with the money, as he computes 

 that two oxen may be maintained for one 

 horse. The advantages which he derives 

 from his cattle are, milk, butter, work and 

 manure ; the last article, manure, he consi- 

 ders as the basis of the improvement of the 

 soil ; consequently, he has applied the whole 

 force of his care and industry towards its ac- 

 cumulation, and has so well succeeded, that 

 from his small number of cattle, he collects 

 yearly about a hundred loads, which is double 

 the quantity which he collected the first year 

 of his farming; and this has led him to con- 

 clude, thai the generality of farmers have 

 too great a proportion of live-stock to their 

 land ! This conclusion appeared to me, at 

 first, very extraordinary, and almost tempted 

 me to consider him a man of paradox ; but 

 his explication of this enigma satisfied and 

 undeceived me, for said he, " when a farm is 

 overstocked, the owner is forced to send his 

 cattle, in the summer months, to graze on 

 waste lands, at a distance from his house and 

 their sheds, which is the loss of so much to 

 the farm-yard ; for as the poverty of these | 



waste lands reduces their milk, to remedy 

 this defect the manger must be filled with 

 fresh grass, when they are brought home at 

 night, which necessarily diminisiies their win- 

 ter store of provision ; scarcity of hay must 

 imply a call for straw, which ought to be en- 

 tirely appropriated to the dung-hill, as, with- 

 out it, no improvement of soil can be ex- 

 pected ; and besides which, bad food is the 

 source of an infinite variety of distempers." 

 And in this way he pointed out most judi- 

 ciously a principal cause of deficiency in the 

 agriculture of the country ; for it is a fact, 

 that many of our farmers keep tnore cattle in 

 the summer than they can conveniently sup- 

 port in the winter; the arable and meadow- 

 lands are, by this bad management, deprived 

 of that part of the manure which they re- 

 quire : the cattle, enfeebled for want of whole- 

 some nourishment, particularly towards the 

 spring, lose their milk or their labouring 

 strength, and frequently die of diseases easily 

 accounted for; and these are truths, which 

 experience too well evinces. He therefore 

 keeps no more live stock than he can amply 

 support with grass and hay from his own 

 fields ; the straw is carefully preserved and 

 used only for litter, of which he is so liberal 

 in his stalls, that the beasts are buried with 

 it to the knees. He is attentive also to ga- 

 ther all the dried leaves, moss, rushes, &c., 

 from his land, that can in any way serve for 

 litter; the small dead boughs and pointed 

 leaves of fir-trees in particular, alibrd plenti- 

 ful materials for this purpose, and he employs 

 in this occupation the greater part of the 

 time he can spare from his other work. 



A compost dunghill appears to him an ob- 

 ject of so great importance to the improve- 

 ment of land, that of all branches of labour 

 he regrets the want of assistance in this the 

 most, and waits, as a singular blessing, the 

 time when his children shall bo capable of 

 contributing their share ; for so thoroughly is 

 he persuaded that he wants only labouring 

 hands to procure fifty loads more of manure, 

 without increasing the number of his cattle .'* 

 In prosecution of this great design, he goes 

 in the autumn into the woods with a hedge- 

 bill, or hook, to prune the supernumerary 

 branches of fir and pine trees ; even of those 

 which he thinks it useful to leave, boldly ven- 

 turing to cut the lower shoots of the young 

 trees close to the trunk ; these he binds into 

 fagots and carries home, placing them un- 

 der a shed, till a proper season for prosecuting 

 his work ; and at leisure hours, and especially 

 in long winter evenings, he prepares these 

 fagots for the purpose intended, an employ- 



* Will our Jersey friends, residins in the midst of the 

 nexliaustible marl-beds of that highly favoured region, 

 reflect on these things: Jifttj loads additional, in the 

 course of the year .' I 



