1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



3^ 



F^r the New England Farmer 

 COMPOSTING. 



BY H. F. FRENCH. 



"I should like to have you tell me what is the 

 advantage of hauling a great lot of common soil 

 into a barn cellar, and then hauling it out again, 

 into the field? Why is not it just as well to plow 

 in the green manure and letit mix in the ground?" 

 _ This question, proposed by a working man, de- 

 sirous of a rational reply, suggested to me the 

 idea of saying something on the subject of Com- 

 posting. 



By supplying our yards and cellars with common 

 soil in proper quantities, we retain the liquid por- 

 tion of the manure, which must otherwise be most- 

 ly lost, and we prevent the evaporation of the vol- 

 atile elements which exist in all manure. In the 

 case of stable manure we also prevent loss by 

 heating, and fire-fanging. Now it does not require 

 avast addition of soil, to effect all these objects, 

 and as carting this material is very expensive, 

 true economy tells us to reflect upon the objects 

 in view, and stop when we have attained them. 



If you can carry out at ten loads, the same ele- 

 ments of fertility that you have heretofore carried 

 out at twenty, you havegained, by saving it, three 

 or four dollars worth of labor, which, in the spring 

 of the year, is worth minding. Quantity is not al- 

 ways value. More than eighty pounds of every 

 hundred of barn-yard manure, hauled into the 

 teld, are nothing more nor less than water, just 

 such as the clouds will give us in abundance, about 

 planting time. Let the farmer keep this in mind 

 as one guiding principle, that manure is valuable 

 not for Its bulk or weight, but for its fertilizing 

 properties, which make but a small part of either 

 Again, we frsquently see farmers in a bright 

 windy April day, expending much labor in com- 

 posting m_ their fields, shoveling over and over 

 again, their manure heaps, often mixing no^mp- 

 with them, and oftener perhaps, road-side sand 

 or worthless soil. We will speak of the gain pres 

 ently. The /05s by the operation is manifest to 

 more senses than one. It was stated in a public 

 •lecture by a learned chemist, that about o/ie-ZiA 

 ot the value of a heap of stable manure would es-l 

 cape by evaporation in such a day as I have' 

 named, by a single shoveling over and shaking up 

 m the usual way. 



_ Letthe former bear in mind, as another guid- 

 ing principle, that one of the most valuable con- 

 stituents of the manure hea^— ammonia, is also 

 one of the most volatile. It has little more than 

 halt the weight of common air. It is the same 

 compound that is used by the ladies, as smelling 

 salts, and the same which often, almost suffocates 

 you, as it does also your horse, in the stall at 

 your stable. Whenever your sense of smelling 

 gives warning, then you may know, that the air 

 13 carrying off your manure heap, though invisibly, 

 of^n as rapidly as an Irishman could do it, with 

 a wheelbarrow. 



For hoed crops, the old way of plowing in the 

 manure as It comes from the yard is often, the 

 true economy. Nothing is then lost by evapora-, 

 tion and no labor is expended in repeatedly hand- 

 ling It over. •' I 



But for gardens, for top-dressing for grass and 

 lor harrowing in, for any purpose, coarse manure 

 cannot well be used. Spread upon the surface 



its whole yalue is almost lost, and the harrow will 

 not cover it. It must be composted for convenience 

 I and economy. This is best done in the barn cellar, 

 [and if done elsewhere, a still moist day should be 

 chosen for the work. 



Thus far, I have spoken only of composting with 

 common earth. Few farms are so poor as not to 

 afford something better. If the compost is for 

 sandy land, clay-loam or clay pulverized by frost, 

 may often be used to advantange. It is desira- 

 ble to save ammonia, which, as has been said, is a 

 very hrad creature to keep. A good cork is neces- 

 sary to confine it in a bottle. Now it happens, 

 that clay has the power to attract and retain am- 

 monia greater than any other kind of soil, so that 

 a double advantage may be gained in some cases 

 by its use, even in large quantities. To pine san- 

 dy lands, I have applied twenty cart loads of clay 

 to the acre, at once, with advantage. Composting 

 it with stable manure renders it less compact ant 

 more friable. 



On the other hand, upon a clai/ei/ soil sand is of 

 great use, especially when applied to the surface 

 in laying it to grass. And to black swamp mead- 

 ows, sand is frequently indispensable to the growth 

 of a crop of grass. For such uses, then, it may be 

 the very best economy, to use in compost, large 

 quantities of sandy loam or even of pure sand 

 if nothing better offers. ' 



A half inch of sand, upon a bog or clay mead- 

 ow, will do much towards preventing the heaving 

 hij frost, which often ruins our newly sprouted 

 grass. 



Clay and sand are, however, but mere amend- 

 ments of the soil, operating for the most part me- 

 chanically, the clay rendering sandy soil more com- 

 pact and retentive of water and manure, the sand 

 rendering clay soil more open, and peremable to the 

 air, and the roots of plants. In addition to this, 

 as has been already hinted, sand supplies to bog 

 meadows a substance known by the name of silex 

 not usually found in such soil, which enters largely 

 into the formation of the stalks of all plants, ap- 

 pearing as pure flint, on the stalks of rye and 

 other grain. 



There exists, however, within reach of almost 

 ev«ry farmer, another class of materials of vastly 

 greater value than any th^it have been named, in 

 the form of swamp mud and peat. These 'deposits 

 differ very widely, some having very little value, 

 and others having almost precisely the same con- 

 stituent elements as barn manure. Usually they 

 contain the same elements which constitute barn 

 and stable manure, except ammonia. This am- 

 monia, we have seen, exists in cow and horse man- 

 ure in larger quantities than they can alone retain. 

 By using them in our barn cellars,or compost heaps, 

 swamp mud or peat, we actually add to the mass 

 most of the valuable constituents of manure, and 

 at the same time retain the volatile part, which 

 would otherwise escape, and which alone is needed 

 to make the muck itself a valuable fertilizer. Very 

 few deposits of swamp mud have been found, which 

 have nut proved valuable when composted with 

 i barn or stable manure. Occasionally, a deposit is 

 found which is valuable, applied to the land direct- 

 ly from the- bed whence it is dug. Usually an ex- 

 posure of one or two years to the action of frost 

 and the atmosphere, or the application of caustic 

 lime or of hme slaked with a solution of salt, will 

 neutralize the acids which exist in most swamps. 



