318 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



outlay for manure, the greater the nett profit of their 

 lands. But it is not the outlay for manure alone that 

 demands a liberal expenditure of capital. Good 

 seed, good farm-stock, and good implements are all 

 essential to the economy of labour, and to neat and 

 profitable farming. And I think it will appear, from 

 the cases I have quoted, that in many locations cap- 

 ital may be very advantageously employed in re- 

 claiming wet and marshy grounds, generally rich 

 and the most productive when laid dry. 



\Vhen our cattle grow lean and threaten to disap- 

 poinl our hopes of profit, we do not hesitate to im- 

 pute the evil to the want of food or to inattention in 

 the herdsman. And, if we are prudent managers, 

 we at once graduate our stock to our food, knowing 

 that one well-fed animal is of more value in the 

 market than two animals that carry but skin and 

 bones, and we take care that the food is properly 

 fed out. When our crops become lean, we need not 

 hesitate to ascribe the decrease in product to like 

 causes want of food, or want of attention in the 

 farmer; and prudence and profit, in like manner, 

 require that our crops, like our animals, should be 

 limited to the food and labour which we have to be- 

 stow upon them. In other words, an acre well ma- 

 nured and well worked will be found to be more 

 profitable than four poor acres badly worked. 



I may here be asked, from whence are to be ob- 

 tained the vast supplies of manure requisite to ma- 

 nure our old lands 1 I answer, from a multiplicity 

 of sources around us, from every animal and vege- 

 table substance within our reach. Nothing that has 

 once been part of an animal or a vegetable but can 

 be converted into corn, grass, and roots. I think I 

 may assume as facts, that, upon an average, not half 

 the manure is saved upon our farms that might be, 

 and that this moiety is half lost before it is applied 

 to the soil. Every horse, ox, or cow wintered upon 

 the farm, if well fed, and littered with the straw, 



