TO IMITATE BARNYARD MANURE. 217 



ingly injurious to vegetation, but nevertheless capable of being 

 neutralized and even converted into the food of plants by the 

 action of lime, — that is, into phosphate and sulphate of lime. 



Dr. Dana, in his exhaustive treatise on its uses, gives, as the 

 simplest and cheapest compost, a cord of peat with one-third of 

 a bushel of salt and one-third of a cask of lime, equal to solid 

 cow dung ; the cost of the same being two dollars and ten cents. 

 And again, three cords of peat with sixty-one pounds sal ammo- 

 niac and one-quarter of a cask of lime will cost four dollars 

 ninety-eight cents per cord. 



Dr. Nichols says : " Barn-yard manure may be imitated by 

 thoroughly composting with a cord of seasoned muck sixty-five 

 pounds of crude nitrate of soda, two bushels of wood ashes, one 

 peck of common salt, ten pounds of fine bone meal, two quarts 

 of plaster and ten pounds of epsom salt " at a cost of three dol- 

 lars fifty cents the cord, and " ought, other things being equal, 

 to serve as good a purpose in the field." 



" By substituting nitrate of potassa, or saltpetre, for soda, the 

 compost is greatly improved, while its cost is enhanced. If the 

 salts are dissolved in water, (those that are soluble,) and the 

 bone in ley, and good muck is employed, a compost is formed 

 very nearly as valuable as seasoned excrement. Very nearly we 

 have said. Why is it not of equal value ? " 



And again, as to the importance of composting or rotting bone 

 dust, " It should be layered with good muck or soil, and kept 

 moist until thorough decomposition results ; then it is fitted for 

 the field." * 



Our honored associate, Mr. Alexander Hyde, in his admirable 

 essay on manures, gives the proportion, one bushel of unleached 

 or two bushels of leached ashes to five bushels of muck, and 

 says : " Lime also acts favorably on muck ; and one bushel 

 slaked with lime will sweeten and render fit for use ten bushels 

 of the vegetable matter." 



Thus there are various rules for decomposing, or as Mr. 

 Hyde says, cooking' peat or muck ; to a very few only of which 

 we have referred ; — all are valuable. 



The carcass of a dead horse or cow, which often is suffered to 

 pollute the air with its noxious eflluvia, when buried in muck 



* Dr. Nichols' lecture before the Board, Report 186G, pp. 232-8. 

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