THE GENESEE FAKMEE. 



your views on these points, although they may have been often expressed, it -will gratify many of 

 the readers of your valuable journal. 



Connected with this subject, I wish to inquire as to the best way of constructing manure tanka 

 How can a yard and stables be so arranged as to save all the urine and liquids made by rains f "We 

 can think of ways enough to remove liquid manure to the field, but how can it be distributed 

 there ? Former numbers of the Farmer have told us of a method being practiced in England, and 

 likewise by Mr. Calvert, of Maryland, to do this with pipes and steam engines ; but this will be 

 too expensive, I think, to be of general application on small farms. I wish to have a barnyard 

 witli a hard, smooth, water-tight bottom. Can this be done with plank f If nut, how can it be 

 attained f 



What has become of the United States Agricultural Society and its Journal ? I intended to 

 become a member and have the Journal ; but they forgot that in taking away the main-spring the 

 motive power was lost 



I am not the only one among your subscribers who rejoices that you have struck out boldly on 

 the subject of agriculture, and taken higher ground than is the wont of others. Tliis course will 

 necessarilly bring you in contact with watchful and jealous men ; but the truth wiU bear its weight 

 and succeed in the long run. R. JL Oejisbee. — Greenfield, Saratoga county, N. Y. 



The next great improvement in agriculture will be achieved in the making, saving, and 

 application of manures. To realize important benefits in this direction, no new discovery 

 is necessary, but simply the wise use of scientific principles already well known. No facts 

 in agriculture are better understood by intelligent cultivators than that every element 

 in the dung and urine of domestic animals is derived from their food, and that from 

 the earth and atmosphere. Strictly speaking, no one is obliged to " make" manure ; 

 for God has made an almost unlimited quantity of the food of plants, which is all the 

 manure they ever need. But to bring this food from where it is, to where the naturally 

 poor or impoverished soil requires it, is a work which demands thought, skill, and 

 capital. We are confident that a great deal of honest hard labor is thrown away in 

 the mismanagement of manures, arising from a want of knowledge of the relative 

 value of their constituent elements. For years have we seen farmers pay a dollar a load 

 for trash in the city of Washington sold as manure, which really was not worth hauling 

 home if given to them, while nightsoil and the dung of horses and swine fed on grain, on 

 their own premises, were allowed to be Avashed into creeks and lost. None but those 

 who have traveled extensively, and paid particular attention to this department of farm 

 economy, have any adequate idea of the prodigious loss that the country sustains by 

 the wasting of the raw material of its great agricultural staples. It is wasted every 

 where — in woods, swamps, ditches, barnyards, under stable floors, in yards, about hay 

 stacks, in meadows, in fields after it is nominally spread, around hog pens, and in the 

 vaults of privies. 



K farmers are willing to improve at all, as we believe many are, the first thing to be 

 done is to avoid this sorry wastfulness of the cream of all fertile land. Provide a 

 water-tight, or a well-cemented or clayed reservoir near your stable, and others in your 

 stock yards, to hold manure of every kind. A basin can be rendered impervious to 

 water by simply pounding good, dry clay, hard and smooth over its bottom and sides. 

 It is best to pound the earth before the clay is applied to make it close, compact, and 

 solid. The basin should have no sharp angles, and its depth, length and breadth, may 

 be governed by the stock kept, and the quantity of manure to be stored therein. 



Barnyard liquids are not apt to be very concentrated ; and how to convey from 500 

 to 1000 tons of such to the fields that need manure is a matter which we have found of 

 some practical importance. In Belgium and Holland watering carts, each drawn by a 

 horse or mule, have been used for ages to distribute diluted urine and liquified solids 

 over meadows and fields about to be tilled. This system combines manuring and irriga- 

 tion, and tells powerfully on all crops ; but it is quite expensive, as only a httle manure 

 is dissolved in a hogshead of water hauled into the field. Before we proceed to indi- 



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