54 MODERN HIGH FARMING. 



The solid portions and the saturated straw should be allowed to 

 remain under the cattle as long as is consistent with health and con- 

 venience. And when forked up should be carefully mixed and 

 deposited m uniform layers upon the heap ; care being taken to 

 break up and disseminate all lumpy portions, before the application 

 of the liquid by means of the pumping process above described. 

 The very highest possible results will be obtained if, from the com- 

 mencement of each heap, the habit is contracted of regularly adding 

 to each layer, as it is put on, a certain evenly distributed quantity of 

 some artificial manure, the nature of which will be dictated, and 

 vary, according to the wants of the soil and contemplated crops. 



Supposing a high grade phosphatic material combined with 

 potash to be necessary, nothing could be better than the addition of 

 a good, soluble, ten or twelve per cent, superphosphate of lime, 

 and muriate of potash, in the proportion of twenty-five pounds of 

 the first and ten pounds of the second, to every hundred pounds 

 of manure. Whereas, if nitrogen is the element required to pre- 

 ponderate, the introduction into the compost of wool refuse, leather 

 scraps, glue refuse, blood and other offal, collected from the various 

 dealers, manufacturers and slaughter-houses, in the nearest towns 

 is highly recommended. 



The chemical transformations or reactions which go on in the 

 compost heaps during their fermentation, are of too complex a na- 

 ture to be fully described within the limits we have prescribed for 

 ourselves, nor is its precise knowledge of any necessity for practi 

 cal purposes. 



We shall therefore rest content with explaining that a process of 

 slow combustion or carbonization very soon sets in, and serves to 

 maintain a temperature of about 100 to 105 Fahrenheit. The air 

 within the mass being composed of carbonic acid and nitrogen 

 gases, with traces only of 0x3* gen. 



By making a clean incision in such a fermenting manure heap 

 as we have described, through the centre from the top to the bottom, 

 we shall find that while the straw at the surface maintains its normal 

 appearance, it gradually assumes a dark brown color towards 



