158 FARM APPLIANCES. 



compost heaps or barn-yard. In all such ditching we 

 must begin at the lowest end of the ditch, so that there 

 shall always be a free outlet for the water. A boat, to 

 be used in removing muck from the bed through a water 

 channel to a hill-side, is shown in figure 189. It is of 

 pine boards, nailed firmly to side planks, braced by a cross 

 plank at the middle. If made nine feet long, four feet 

 wide, and sixteen inches deep, it will floab a ton of muck. 

 A runner is placed under each side, so that the boat can 

 be drawn upon the land. A hook or eye should be 

 placed on each side, and others at one end, by which the 

 boat may be drawn. While floating, the boat is moved 

 by handspikes. The place where the muck is heaped to 

 dry, should be as near as possible to the bed from which 

 it is dug. 



The muck may be very peaty, or the material really 

 may be peat that is, consisting almost entirely of vege- 

 table matter and ash whereas muck, as the word is ap- 

 plied in the United States, is used to mean such as 

 would be of little or no value as fuel, from the amount 

 of soil or sand or calcareous matter in it ; but it is useful 

 as manure. The peaty mucks are greatly benefited by 

 being treated with lime in fact it is only by acting upon 

 them with lime or ashes that they can be made rapidly 

 fit for composts or for application to the land. The old 

 rule to slake stone-lime with strong brine, adding only 

 brine enough to dry-slake the lime, is a very good one. 

 Such lime may be depended upon for the best results 

 when composted with muck. 



HOW TO BURN LIME. 



The application of lime improves the mechanical tex- 

 ture of heavy soils, and this will frequently compensate 

 for its use, if the lime can be obtained cheaply. In many 



