MANURES. 141 



Keep it light and as springy as possible. I also find 

 it most prudent to avoid compression through rais- 

 ing the heap above the allotted height. 



My supply of turf to this time has been taken from 

 a swamp about five feet deep, of about two thirds of 

 an acre, one half of which, down to the clay subsoil, 

 I have used in composts or otherwise, and which I 

 propose tilling the coming summer. I have also 

 used the turf in bottoming my barn and cattle yard, 

 stables and hog-sties, and in burning it for ashes. 

 My first application of it to manuring began with the 

 last spring. 



The ashes were used as I have already stated in 

 a previous number, and I can assure you my clover 

 and grass crops fully justified all the anticipations I 

 was authorized to make. Some of my neighbours, 

 of excellent practical information in ordinary mat- 

 ters, attempted to dissuade me from the use of it. 

 A f<iw days before my harvest, I asked them to call 

 and see a result 1 wished to, exhibit to them. Lead- 

 ing them to a stand a short distance from a field to 

 which the ashes had been applied, I pointed their 

 attention to a very visible line which could be traced 

 across a part of the field, and asked them if they 

 could perceive a difference on its two sides. Ad- 

 mitting it, I asked them to accompany me to the line, 

 and to follow it across the field, observing to them, 

 that for the wheat-crop of the preceding fall, the ma- 

 nuring on both sides of the line, and the seeding for 

 wheat, for timothy, and for clover had been precisely 

 similar ; but that, in the spring, an application had 

 been made to the field to improve the grass, which 

 was found, however, not to be sufficient for the whole 

 field, and became exhausted on the land at which the 

 line was visible. On examining the course of the 

 whole line, the clover on the side to which the ashes 



