332 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



l)ien thus employed four da3's; and in one day more 

 itiey will have a heap collected of at least fifty cait- 

 buck loads. A portion of the heap will soon be 

 iMrled to the barn for early use in the trench, and 

 the remainder will be hauled by sledding, and piled 

 undei the shed. During the time the cattle are 

 stabled, through the fall, winter, and early spring, 

 tiie trench will be daily filled with the leaves and 

 mould, and tlius will be made from four to six times 

 as much manure as is ordinarily made by farmers 

 from an equal number of cattle wintersd. The 

 liquids and gases of the cattle-manure, l)y too many 

 sutfered to waste, will be absorbed and held by the 

 vegetable mould; and in the spring I shall have a 

 black free mass of compost, fit for all sorts of crops. 

 Having often used precisely such a compost, I know 

 that this will be most refreshing and invigorating to a 

 hungry New England soil. It cannot be excelled 

 as a dressing for orchards, and for all kinds of fruit 

 >ir ornamental trees; and wherever it is applied, sat- 

 isfactory results will follow. It is the easiest of all 

 composts to handle, and the lightest to haul. A 

 pair of horses or oxen will carry by sledding three- 

 fourths of a cord of it, well trodden down. The 

 leaves and mould heaped in the woods for future 

 compost are so light and warm, that the pile never 

 freezes more than two or three inches deep-: if cov- 

 ered by snow, it will not freeze at all; so that it is 

 always ready for handling and for hauling to the 

 barn in winter. A larger proportion of the leaves 

 and mould may be daily used in the trench than of 

 muck, because, being free from acids, and composed 

 of light vegetable matter in all stages of decay, a 

 powerful fermentation commences very soon after it 

 comes in contact with the urine in the trench. — 

 Even if thrown out of stable-windows, provided the 

 heaps are on the south side of the barn, the compost 

 will generate so much heat that a foil of snow upon 

 it a foot deep, will generally melt off in two or 

 three days. 



The mould formed by a growth of hard wood, 

 is of much better quality, and is more in quantity, 

 than that made by a growth of hemlock, pine, or 

 spruce. Having a plenty of the former, I have 

 made no use of the lattei. Of the hard woods, the 

 walnut, maple, blackbirch and ash make the best 

 mould; that from the beech is good, but thin, and 

 difficult to grub up, because the roots of the trees 

 run very near the surface of the ground. Very 

 good mould is found around butternut trees, and 

 that around chestnut trees is pretty good. 



It has been neatly an annual custom with me, 

 for several years, to collect from ten to twenty 

 cords of this material, composting it variously with 

 the excrements of animals, and applying it vari- 

 ously for the improvement of the tillage-fields; and 

 I have not yet seen cause to abandon the custom. 

 True, it would not be advisable to remove this 

 mould indiscriminately from the forests; but if 

 taken from the hollows and places where it gath- 

 ers in extra quantities, it probably soon accumu- 

 lates again in sufficient quantities for the wants of 

 the trees; and if it betaken only from these places, 

 braving the knolls and plains undisturbed, the in- 

 jury, if any, to the forests, will be more than bal- 

 anced to the owner by the benefits imparted to his 

 tillage-fields and crops. 



To any one who may chance to read this com- 

 iiiunication, and who is desirous of making good 

 ••■)npost in large quantities, I would say — try 

 I.!.; method I have now detailed, and so ascertain 



whether it will do for you or not. If you winter 

 say fifteen to twenty head of cattle, you can re- 

 arrange your stable-floor and construct a trench in 

 it at an expense of about twenty dollars; and this 

 well done will answer the purpose for years. 

 Then gather materials to put in the trench for com- 

 post. If the leaves and mould of wood-lands are 

 conveniently accessible, heap them up in Novem- 

 ber, and draw the heap to the barn, a few loads at 

 a time, in the winter, or if there is spare room in a 

 shed near the stable, pile it all there. It will not 

 freeze much in the pile. If swamp-muck is inost 

 convenient, dig it in August, or earlier, and pro- 

 vide a dry warm place for it, in or about the barn 

 if you choose, though I should pile it under the 

 shed and let it freeze; for the frost will improve 

 the muck, and with a sharp pickaxe, one can cnsily 

 cleave it from the pile from day to day, as wanted. 



If neither vegetable mould and leaves from the 

 woods, nor muck, can be conveniently procured 

 for the trench, then turf dug and piled in season to 

 rot before being used, rich loam from the road-side, 

 head-lands about the fences, or the wash centering 

 in rich hollows, may be provided; and in case such 

 materials can be used, they should be piled in a 

 place pretty inuch free from frost; for frozen loam 

 is quite a different substance from frozen muck: 

 the latter is spongy, and easily operated on; the 

 former is almost as hard and unyielding as stone. 

 Whichever material is used, it will be well to put 

 straw, swamp-hay, brakes, or other refuse litter 

 under the cattle, for bedding, thereby promoting 

 their comfort and swelling the manure heap. If 

 swamp-muck is put into the trench, these light 

 bulky vegetable substances used for bedding the 

 cattle,[and daily thrown out with the contents of the 

 trench, will cause the heap to lay up lightly, will 

 promote its fermentation, thus expelling the acids 

 of the muck, and preparing it for more immediate 

 use. 



If it is inconvenient or unpracticable to provide 

 oneself with a barn-cellar, tlie compost will woik 

 well thrown out at stable windows, only let there 

 be a roof over the heaps, (a cheap one will do,) to 

 protect them froin sun and stoims. Even with a 

 cellar, it would still be well to mix the compost in 

 the trench, that being the nicest way, the way to 

 make the greatest quantity of eflfective manure from 

 a given number of animals. 



The method of cotnposting here detailed may be 

 objected to because of the labor involved. The re- 

 ply is, that most things of value in this world coine 

 to us only as the result of diligent unintermitted 

 labor. He who is content to see around him bar- 

 ren fields, scanty crops, and lean starving animals, 

 may pass along without devising ways for changing 

 such a condition of things, growling at all proposi- 

 tions of amendment pointed out to him, and reap- 

 ing such returns as an exhausting, skinning tillage 

 will give him. But it is far better to be up and 

 doing in the manufacture of manure for the invig- 

 oration of the soil; it is both pleasanter, and more 

 profitable, to be pursuing an improving, rather 

 than an exhausting mode of farming. 



F. HOLBROOK. 



Brattkboro\ Nov. 1, 1851. 



\^' Joshua Upham, of Salem, has taken out a 

 patent for "an improvement in compounds for ex- 



tmguishing 

 suppose. 



fires. 



A new fire annihilator, we 



