216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a black, free mass, and spreads like garden mould. Use it weight 

 for weight like farm-yard dung, and it will be found to stand 

 the comparison. Let it be observed, that the object of making 

 up the compost is to form as large a hot-bed as the quantity of 

 dung employed admits of, and then to surround it on all sides, 

 so as to have the whole benefit of the heat and effluvia. Peat, 

 nearly as dry as garden mould in seed time, may be mixed with 

 the dung, so as to double the volume and more, and nearly 

 triple the weight, and instead of hurting the peat, prolong it. 

 One who has used this compost for seven years, considers it to 

 be of immense importance. He would rather bring peat for two 

 or three miles than want it for his compost heaps. 



In this process of making compost, a large quantity of al- 

 most inert humus is broken down and rendered fit to yield 

 abundant nourishment to plants, both in the shape of carbonic 

 acid gas and also saline matter ; while the ammonia, produced 

 by the fermentation of dung, is absorbed and retained by the 

 humus. 



In all cases where good muck can be obtained, experience 

 has shown there can be no question about the propriety and ad- 

 vantage of using it for that purpose. We have for ten years 

 used this compost with the very best effect for roots and grass. 

 As top-dressing on meadows it is better than pure dung, es- 

 pecially where the soil is light, leachy, or from other cause 

 quick to suffer in dry seasons. 



When liorse manure is carted out in hot weather, the mode 

 of composting is varied by thoroughly mixing with it an equal 

 quantity of muck, instead of placing it in layers — the heap 

 being afterward well covered with muck. This to prevent fire- 

 fanging, which so quickly destroys it in our hot summer 

 weather. As a preventive against the same evil, it should be 

 liberally thrown upon the manure in the pit or pen during the 

 summer months. 



Muck can be well decomposed in various ways, by compost- 

 ing with lime, plaster, ashes, salt, nitrate of soda, etc. 



Besides the ordinary constitution of peat or muck, which 

 consists for the most part of inert vegetable matter, which from 

 causes beautifully explained by Liebig, has ceased to undergo 

 fartlier voluntary decomposition, it often contains sulphate of 

 iron, free phosphoric and sulphuric acids, all substances exceed- 



