MANURES 147 



To this it will be said by some, it is laborious and 

 expensive. Not so much so as may be apprehended, 

 or as would be the case with others not assisted 

 with mechanical powers and under-drains as I an; , 

 but what I have thus done at some expense, others 

 may do, in a great degree, for a mere trifle, and t j 

 a way that I may hereafter suggest. 



I assume, as a standard, the fact that farmers with 

 us pay one dollar per load for manure, and that this 

 is a criterion by which to form an estimate of the 

 labour or capital which may profitably be bestowed 

 in obtaining it as I do. If this be the true criterion 

 for judging, every day's labour I expend in produ- 

 cing it is worth twenty-fold the sum I pay my hands 

 to effect it. 



Turf affords an invaluable medium for saving the 

 waste of manure, and for increasing its amount and 

 usefulness ; and it is better than rich mould, earths, 

 or the pearings and bottoms of ditches, inasmuch as 

 it is all vegetable, and in itself, strictly speaking, a 

 manure, when properly prepared. 



The contents of stables, barnyards, and cattle and 

 hog pens should never be exposed to the solar heat 

 or to fermentative evaporations, or their drainings 

 lost, when turf, or any inert vegetable substance, or 

 surplus farm materials of a vegetable or animal na- 

 ture abound ; nor should animal substances, fish or 

 any other, be suffered to waste their effluvia in the 

 air when such materials can be had. For all use- 

 ful purposes, enough of the agricultural influence or 

 effect of manure is produced as soon as vegetable or 

 animal decay is sure to progress. From that moment 

 a compost should be resorted to, and the heat and 

 action of the manure (which is sure and irresistibly 

 powerful) be thus brought to operate on substances 

 to which this propensity has not been sufficiently 

 imparted. In this state, all that is ordinarily wasted 

 tends to a useful result in augmenting the mass. 



It is a common practice to bury fish, preparatory 



