MUCK AS AN ABSORBENT. 213 



it by wheelbarrows on planks from the pit to the upland, keep- 

 ing one set of hands digging, another wheeling. 



It is as an absorbent that mvick is found to be most useful, 

 and in that quality a perfect deodorizer. Remembering that it 

 is the manure which makes the farm profitable, and that all 

 other things being equal, he who can spread the most good ma- 

 nure will prosper the best ; and that the urine of cattle is un- 

 questionably equal in its fertilizing effect to their solid excre- 

 ment, every effort ought to be made to save it. It is truly a pain- 

 ful thing to see a farmer paying good dollars for very question- 

 able fertilizers, while he avails himself not of the resources of his 

 own farm. We know and are quite ready to acknowledge how 

 great is the improvement in this respect of late years. Where 

 all the wash of our barns and houses was once turned into the 

 gutters and got rid of as a nuisance in the cheapest possible 

 way, it is now, on most farms, where any degree of intelligence 

 is brought to bear upon their management, in some measure 

 preserved. But, alas ! how imperfectly. We yet see outside 

 the barn windows the heaps of dung, and in the yards the pu- 

 trid pools of liquid manure, offending the eye and poisoning the 

 sweet air of spring. If the owner bestirs himself to cart a few 

 loads of crude muck, sour and dripping, to the yard, making a 

 mire for his cattle to wallow in, and not much else, he thinks 

 he has quite done his work, and retires for the winter, to won- 

 der, at the next harvest, what all this talk about muck signifies. 

 To him it has proved worthless. Now the rain, wind and sun 

 are damaging to the liquid as to the solid, though in greater de- 

 gree, urine, the most delicate of manures, being more easily 

 deprived of all that renders it useful than solid dung. Those, 

 then, who do not rejoice in the possession of cemented barn-cel- 

 lars, where the liquid can be saved with the dung, we would 

 urge to make a deposit of dry, well-seasoned muck, near at 

 hand, under cover, if possible, but, if not, piled high and well 

 covered with leaves and refuse litter to protect it from frost and 

 rain. We say well-seasoned, for in its crude state it is not an 

 absorbent, but, like a soaked sponge, can hold no more than 

 the water already in it. Let this be used as the occasion and 

 general plan of barn management require. If the wash be col- 

 lected in a cesspool, throw in muck, as much and as often as 

 there is anything to be absorbed, remembering it is here, espec- 



