No. 4. 



Importance of Mamire. 



123 



ment so little disagreeable or fatiguing, that 

 it serves him for recreation. He begins by 

 cutting the small branches away from the 

 larger ones, laying them, with the pointed 

 leaves of these trees, in little heaps, to be 

 used for litter, while the larger and tougher 

 boughs are reserved for fuel ; by this method 

 he amasses many proper materials for good 

 manure, that are commonly suffered to rot 

 uselessly in the woods, which is so much real 

 loss to husbandry ! To Kliyogg this disco- 

 very is an incslimahle treasure, of which we 

 were either ignorant or forgetful ; and this 

 opinion is farther verified in the husbandry 

 of the canton of Appenzell, where they scat- 

 ter dead branches of fir and pine trees in 

 great roads, ti? be trampled upon by cattle and 

 passengers, by which means they acquire a 

 beginning of putrefaction, and are converted 

 into manure, though, it must be confessed, of 

 a very indifferent quality; but Kliyogg, who 

 had experienced how defective this method 

 was, has succeeded in what at first seemed 

 hard to accomplish, namely, converting these 

 very materials into excellent manure. And 

 although it is known that resinous and aro- 

 matic juices, contained in the prickly leaves 

 of pines, are powerful enemies to putrefac- 

 tion, yet, what obstacles are not to be sur- 

 mounted by reason, aided by industry ! He 

 subdued them all, by observing certain rules 

 in the preparation of litter for his cattle, and 

 of the difftrent strata of his dunghill. He 

 does not remove the dung from under his 

 cattle under a week, strewing fn.>;h litter 

 upon the top every day; this method he does 

 not find injurious to the health of his cattle, 

 nor does he think it prevents cleanliness, if a 

 constant supply of fresh litter be added. His 

 exactness is conspicuous in the management 

 of this litter when taken away, for it is placed 

 in separate layers upon the dung-hill, and so 

 methodised, that those where the fermenta- 

 tion is soonest to be expected, may accelerate 

 the putrefaction of otliers where it is more 

 slow ; he therefore, in the beginning of au- 

 tumn, litters his cattle with straw during two 

 months; the next two months he litters them 

 with twigs and spines, or pointed leaves, from 

 fir and pine trees; then straw again, or 

 rushes or dried leaves; then twigs, spines, 

 and so on alternately. 



The rfgulation of his compost dung-hill 

 is as follows. Lest the fermentation should 

 be totally suppressed, or even checked by 

 drought, he is assiduously attentive to the 

 preservation of a certain degree of moisture, 

 knowing that to obtain a manure thoroughly 

 rotted, he has nothing to do but to preserve a 

 constant fermentation by frequent waterings ; 

 and to facilitate this, he has sunk, near his 

 dunghill, seven large square pits, which are 

 planked with wood in the form of boxes, and I 



in these he keeps the prolific water essential 

 to so many operations; first, putting some 

 thoroughly fermented cow-dung at the bottom 

 of his boxes, he pours in a pretty considerable 

 quantity of boiling water, and then fills up 

 the pit with fresh water from his well ; this 

 brings on, in three weeks, a state of putres- 

 cence, which, without boiling water, could 

 not be attained in two montlis : he has thus a 

 supply of corrupted water, as well for the 

 purposes of vegetation as to keep his dung- 

 hill in a constant state of humidity. His re- 

 servoirs of stagnant water are sunk below 

 his stalls and stables, with the view to con- 

 veniency, and there is likewise a trough at 

 the declivity of the dung-hill, to receive the 

 water that runs from it, and this gives an easy 

 opportunity of moistening the dung-hill fre- 

 quently, without robbing the soil of its share 

 of the stagnant water. And the success of 

 this method of watering his dung-hill sug- 

 gested the idea of putrifying small twigs of 

 fir and pine, without using them for litter; 

 he lays them in close heaps, pressed down 

 and covered with earth, to prevent evapora- 

 tion, and pours stagnated water upon them 

 every day, until they are converted into rich 

 mould ! But he does not bound his improve- 

 ments within the circle of that quantity of 

 manure, which his industry procures from his 

 small number of cattle, for he buys every 

 year seven loads of dung from his neigh- 

 bours ! and these he mixes with six tons of 

 peat ashes ; and he finds the effect of tfiese 

 two kinds of manure answerable to his ex- 

 pectations." 



Now, how strangely will it appear to many 

 of your readers, who witness daily and hourly 

 the waste of thousands of loads of the finest 

 manure, in the washings from cattle-yards; 

 the rich soils which might be obtained from 

 river and road-sides ; the cleanings of ponds; 

 the openings of pits and quarries ; and more 

 especially, tlie waste of winter-bedding-, in 

 the shape of stubbles from the different crops, 

 which are often left standing in the fields 

 knee-deep, because of the weeds or grass 

 contained in them, which ought to be sacri- 

 ficed, rather than lose a foot in height of the 

 stubbles and cords of dung in the cattle- 

 yards ! How strange will it appear to such, 

 I say, to hear a man regretting that he is de- 

 prived, by the want of assistance from his 

 young and helpless family, of making an ad- 

 ditional fifty loads of compost in the course 

 of the year ! and rejoicing in the inestimable 

 treasure contained in the spikes and leaves 

 and branches of his pine trees, which he 

 trims up by candle-light in winter evenings, 

 by way of recreation ! And after the inesti- 

 mable treasure which he obtains from this 

 source of his discovery, to find him absolutely 

 a purchaser of manure, to the amount of seven 



