1863. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



373 



atioDs ia boring into the fruit. Persons having 

 plum-trees, and leisure, and wishing to preserve f 

 few of tlie fruit after it lias been bitten, can witl 

 the point of a penknife, or with the thumb or fin 

 ger nail, easily remove the spot from its place, and 

 no harm will come to the fruit except the scar left 

 by it. — Greenfield Reptiblican. 



For the Neiu England Farmer. 

 BARN CELLARS, RESTORATIVE GAS 

 ES, AND OTHER SPECULATIONS. 



jMessrs. Editous : — Most of the farmers in this 

 vicinity who have renewed their barns have also 

 built capacious, well-constructed cellars under the 

 whole building, at a large additional expense. A 

 little experience has led me to make the following 

 remarks on the subject of barn cellars. 



Eleven years ago, I had a cellar constructed un- 

 der my cow hovel with the intention of sheltering 

 my manure from the weather and saving the liquid 

 excrements, which, under our former manage- 

 ment, without a cellar, were mostly lost. The ad- 

 vantages I have realized from my cellar have not 

 but partially answered my expectations. The cel- 

 lar was closed with matched boards in front, and 

 walled with stones at the sides to keep it tight ; 

 the floor over it had openings to let the excrements 

 pass from the hovel into the cellar, which would be 

 nearly full in the spring when wanted for use. On 

 removing the dung from the cellar we found a large 

 part of it dry and hard, and in no condition to de- 

 compose into suitable nourishment for immediate 

 food for growing vegetables, the urine not being 

 sufficient to supply the required amount of hu- 

 midity necessary to promote fermentation, its 

 state of decomposition being quite behind that 

 thrown out at the hovel window and lying the 

 same length of time, which had been kept damp 

 by snow and rain. I am not able to compi-ehend 

 what loss green manure can sustain in a few weeks 

 while lying in a conical form as thrown from the 

 window before the process of fermentation takes 

 place to disengage the gases, or even afterward 

 within the space of a year. I have known some 

 of our best practical farmers prefer to have their 

 dung heaps lay in that form till tliey were rotten 

 enough to put in the hills or to spread to top dress 

 grass land. How much the loss is, during the 

 process of fermentation, in the escape of nutritive 

 gases, cannot be ascertained without accurate 

 chemical experiments and nice observation. We 

 cannot make a perfect compost without a large 

 supply of water in the form of rain, or from some 

 other source, and, therefore, I think the rains 

 which fall upon a heap of green manure must rath- 

 er benefit than injure the process of fermentation 

 and rotting. After housing my dung four or five 

 winters, I have turned back to the old custom of 

 throwing it through the hovel windows again. I 

 believe the gases which escape and ascend from 

 our manure wliile in a state of fermentation and 

 decomposition descend again on being condensed 

 by some chemical agency in the laboratory of the 

 atmospliere, and fertilize our lands which lie in 

 a state of rest, and as evidence of the truth of my 

 theory, I will refer to practical facts flimiliar to all 

 farmers of observation who have reared herds of 

 cattle and sheep. 



Lands which have been exhausted by cropping 

 are restored to fertility again after supplying a 



flock of sheep with their food, and their owners 

 with wool, pelts and mutton, after a lapse of a 

 few years, so that they will produce respectable 

 crops of grain again without manure ; now how 

 does this happen if the nutritive gases do not re- 

 turn again to the earth in such large quantities 

 as to furnish the sheep with a living, the farmer, 

 with wool, meat, and pelts, and at the same time 

 (after so large a deduction and draught ujion the 

 soil) it should continue to gain in fertility so as to 

 produce one or two crops of grain (mce in five or 

 more years ? Those who keep swine in their barn 

 cellars, perhaps have much the advantngc of those 

 who do not, as a hog is an animal that never 

 leaves a moveable thing as he finds it, generally 

 examining all sides of it, even if it is excrement of 

 the most offensive kind ; his olfactories are such 

 that he appears to enjoy the odor as he would the 

 most delicate perfume, and as willingly works 

 among the most nauseous filth as sport in the fra- 

 grance of the garden of Eden. liogs are called 

 dung makers, which is a very appropriate name, 

 and to those educated in a barn-cellar no one will 

 dispute their merit to the title, but the idea of eat- 

 ing pork saturated with the filth of a barn cellar 

 is revolting to the sensibilities of those who are so 

 particular as to trace effects to causes. TMe great- 

 est advantage, and that a real one, that I have 

 found from having a barn cellar, is from the liquid 

 excrements being all saved and conveyed through 

 holes in the floor into the cellar where quantities 

 of earthy and vegetable materials are deposited 

 purposely to absorb the urinous effusions from 

 above ; in this way we have made very valuable 

 manure for top-dressing of grass land or for grain 

 crops, and are compensated for the extra expense 

 of making a cellar. 



The first barn cellar within my knowledge in 

 this neighborhood was made by Col. Loammi Bald- 

 win, the noted engineer of Middlesex Canal, 

 more than half a century ago ; after trying it a 

 few years he told a friend of mine who was about 

 building a barn, that he could not advise him to 

 make a cellar under it from any beneficial experi- 

 ence he had received from his own cellar ; and my 

 neighbor built a large barn without a cellar, influ- 

 enced, as he told me, by the Col.'s advice. The 

 effluvia which fly off from our barn cellars and 

 dung heaps are not lost but return again to us 

 with interest, though the same gases may not de- 

 scend upon the same man's premises where they 

 originated ; they appear to be equally distributed 

 by an impartial Providence upon everyman's fixrm, 

 according to his number of acres. The man who 

 enriches his land by plowingjn his clover or buck- 

 wheat is indebted to the nutritive gases which es- 

 cape from the decomposition of animal and vege- 

 table substances, and enter life in another form af- 

 ter descending from the great atmospheric labora- 

 tory. 



Nutritive gases transferred from the decomposi- 

 tion of animal and vegetable substances to he re- 

 organized in the form of buckwheat and clover, 

 constitute a considerable portion of those produc- 

 tions as well as other vegetables ; or why should 

 those plants which are entirely indebted to the 

 earth for their sustenance add any fertility to it by 

 being plowed under to decompose there, as the 

 earth would only take back what she gave, and 

 gain nothing by the operation. The chemical 

 operations of the Divine mind as much surpass the 



