146 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



kind, when it is not too wet, are forced to find their 

 way, to break up and mix its contents with the drain- 

 ings of the barnyard. Until the drainings of the 

 yards have reached the farthest extent of this road, 

 they should not be applied to agricultural uses. He- 

 fore driving my cattle from rny yards, if it becomes 

 necessary to do so, and always two or three times a 

 day when its surface is moist, a boy, as a standing 

 rule, drives them for exercise several times round 

 the yards, the better to bring the manure in contact 

 with the bottomings. I have other modes, not here 

 explained, by which I readily avoid the access to my 

 yards and tank of the excess of drenching rains, 

 when the storms are heavy and of long duration. 

 This I may explain, if desirable, on another occasion. 

 "Within the last year I have lost none absolutely 

 none ! of the leaching of my yards and stables.* 



* " The modern agriculturist, he thought, did not pay suffi- 

 cient attention to the manures made in the foldyard. Some- 

 times he had been asked how his fattening animals paid him for 

 the trouble of producing them. This, however, could not be 

 answered by a mere reference to the sum he obtained for them 

 by sale, but there was a variety of circumstances to be consid- 

 ered before he could answer it properly. For instance, the 

 quantity of manure obtained from them was one not wet straw, 

 but good manure. There was another thing which required at- 

 tention: when the manure was carried from the foldyard into 

 the fields, it was suffered to lie in a large heap for a long time ; 

 so long, indeed, that, before it was spread upon the land, its qual- 

 ities had perished. He was aware that it required a certain 

 time for fermentation to take place, but it was frequently left till 

 such fermentation had passed off. It was his practice, as soon 

 as the heaps were raised on the field, to throw a quantity of 

 mould upon them, and thus prevent evaporation taking place too 

 rapidly. Proper attention ought also to be paid to draining the 

 foldyard. The produce saved was now, in ten out of twlevo in- 

 stances, lost. It would be advisable, when the yard had a full, to 

 establish conveniences for catching it, and then convey it to the 

 lands. In France and the Netherlands they were extremely 

 careful in preserving this liquid manure, and the peasants inigbt 

 be seen conveying it out to the fields, and giving each plant -i 

 proper proportion." Shillito in Quarterly Journal of Agricul 

 'ure. 



