140 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY 



latter in barnyards, and of expelling from the turf, 

 through that mode of preparing it, the qualities with 

 which it is imbued, when taken from the swamps, 

 deleterious to vegetation. I began, some months ago, 

 the use of it, in some degree, after the modes advert- 

 ed to by the members of the association ; and have, 

 from information I have been able to obtain from 

 emigrants, and from my own observation and read- 

 ing, been led to a series of experiments with it. 

 Though the results are not yet as complete as I 

 hope eventually to make them, I apprehend that 

 what I have thus far observed may be useful. I ap- 

 ply the turf in a variety of ways : First, after the 

 mode of preparing it in compost, directed by Lord 

 Meadowbanks, " which was printed and distributed 

 gratis among the Scotch peasantry many years ago, 

 and which has ever since been highly approved of, 

 both by practical and scientific cultivators," in Scot- 

 land, Ireland, and generally in all the European 

 countries in which peat is to be found. That meth- 

 od has been described in former numbers of the Cul- 

 tivator, and will be found, in all its essential particu- 

 lars, in Fessenden's New-England Farmer and Rural 

 Economist, pages 209 to 212, and in Loudon's Ency- 

 clopaedia of Agriculture. Composts have been made 

 by me which, when prepared in strict-eonformity to 

 those directions, have fully justified them. Through 

 this means, there is no difficulty in trebling or four- 

 folding an ordinary farm supply of manure, and which 

 may (as the authors say) " be used weight for weight 

 as farmyard manure, and will be found, in a course of 

 cropping, fully to stand the comparison." Whenever 

 I have deviated from the track laid down, I have 

 found that a strict pursuit of the old practice was 

 the better, and have returned to it. In particular, I 

 find the necessity not only of avoiding the compres- 

 sion of the compost heap by the tread of the men or 

 cattle employed, but the expediency of throwing into 

 it every vegetable material which may contribute to 



