OL. XX, Second Series. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y., FEBRUARY, 1859. 



No. 2- 



ATTEND TO THE MANimE HEAP. 



Take care of the manures and the crops will 

 ke cf.re of themselves, is as true and as well 

 orthy of being iterated and reiterated as Poor 

 ichard's familiar proverb, " Take care of the 

 nnies and the pounds will take care of tliem- 

 Ives." More manure and letter, should be the 

 atchword of every farmer. 

 There is a very general impression, that passing 

 od through the body of aa animal increases its 

 ilue as manure. Now, if we are to understand 

 ' this that it adds something to it that it did not 

 assess before, it is a mistake. A given weight of 

 e liquid and solid excrements is worth more as 

 anure than the same weight of the food, at equal 

 agrees of dryness, consumed by the animals from 

 hich they are derived. But it mrtst be remem- 

 jred that one hundred pounds of dry food eaten 

 { an animal furnishes only forty pounds of dry 

 atter in the liquid and solid excrements. In 

 -her werds, there is a loss in feeding, of sixty per 

 ^nt. This loss consists principally of carbon — an 

 ement of little value as manure. This forty 

 )unds of dry matter is worth as much for manure, 

 nearly so, (there being a little loss of nitrogen, 

 losphates, &c.,) as the one hundred pounds of dry 

 od ; and of course one hundred pounds of such 

 anure would be worth much more than one hun- 

 ed pounds of the food from which it was derived, 

 is this fact that has led to the impression that 

 eding food to animals increases its value as ma- 

 ire. The liquid and solid excrements of animals 

 ang on clover, for instance, would be a more ap- 

 opriate food of wheat and other cereals than the 

 over itself; and if carefully preserved, would 

 rnish very nearly as great an amount of those 

 iments most required by the wheat. 

 It can not be too often repeated that the value 

 the manure depends, primarily, on the composi- 

 )n of the food eaten by the animals. " You can 

 >t make a whistle out of a pig's tail," neither can 

 )U make good manure out of an old straw stack. 



Yon may rot it down, or feed it to animals ; but it 

 is straw still. " But can not you make it valuable 

 by mixing other manures with it?" Certainly. If 

 you use it for absorbing the liquid of animals liv- 

 ing on better food, you make the heap of manure 

 more valuable, — and the practice is a good one, 

 and much to be commended. But the straw is 

 straw stiE. If you have a purse of pennies, and 

 you mix with them a quantity of gold dollars, you 

 make the purse more valuable ; but the gold dol- - 

 lars do not add to the intrinsic value of the pen- 

 nies. It may be more convenient to carry them 

 mixed together ; but if the gold dollars were in 

 one pocket and the pennies in another, you would 

 have just as much money as though you had them 

 all in one pocket. So it may be more convenient 

 to mix the good manure with the poor. The latter 

 may absorb and retain those substances which 

 would otherwise drain away or fly off; but the 

 mixture contains no more fertilizing elements, and 

 would be no more valuable as manure, than if the 

 good and the poor manure had been carefully pre- 

 served and applied separately. Unless the sub- 

 stances from which the manures are derived con- 

 tain the necessary elements-, it is vain to expect to 

 make a valuable manure from them by any known 

 process of feeding, or fermentation. 



The manure from poultry is more valuable than 

 that from hogs, while the latter is generally more 

 valuable than that from horses or from cattle and 

 sheep ; and many persons seem to think that differ- 

 ent animals have different powers which, in some 

 mysterious way, affect the quality of the manure. 

 This is not the case — at least to any appreciable 

 extent. The droppings of poultry are the most val- 

 uable from the fact that fowls live on richer food, 

 and the liquids and solids are voided together. So 

 of hogs and other animals. If the food were the 

 same, there would be little if any difference in the 

 value of the manure. One hundred pounds of hay, 

 eaten by a horse, an ox, or a sheep, would furnish 

 manure, differing perhaps in quantity, but of pre- 



