Cato^s Farm Management 



Of Manure 



(v) Plan to have a big compost 

 heap and take the best of care of the 

 manure. When it is hauled out see 

 that is well rotted and spread. The 

 Autumn is the time to do this. 



(XXXVll) You can make manure of 

 litter, lupine straw, chaff, bean stalks, 

 husks and the leaves of ilex and of 

 oak.^ 



after long continued drought, the rain has soaked 

 the ground. Then it is that the earth exhales the 

 divine odour that is so peculiarly its own, and to 

 which, imparted to it by the sun, there is no per- 

 fume however sweet that can possibly be compared. 

 It is this odour which the earth, when turned up, 

 ought to emit, and which, when once found, can 

 never deceive any person : and this will be found the 

 best criterion for judging of the quality of the soil. 

 Such, too, is the odour that is usually perceived in 

 land newly cleared when an ancient forest has been 

 just cut down; its excellence is a thing that is uni- 

 versally admitted." 



1 The ancients fully appreciated the importance of 

 manure in any conservative system of agriculture. 

 The Romans indeed sacrificed to Stercuius as a god. 

 Says Pliny (H. N. XVII, 9). 



"In the times of Homer even the aged king 

 (Odyss. XXIV, 225) is represented as thus enrich- 

 ing the land by the labor of his own hands. 



"Tradition reports that King Augeas was the first 

 in Greece to make use of manure, and that Hercules 

 introduced the practice into Italy, which country has, 

 however, immortalized the name of its King Ster- 



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