60 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



cate, food for the one hundred or more swine, which devour all 

 of it that is eatable, and, with a plentiful supply of meadow 

 mud, work up the rest into the richest of food for the grain 

 and other crops raised on the farm. Five hundred cart loads 

 of manure are thus made here annually, and never have we 

 seen a more thrifty and profitable set of hogs, in any enclosure. 

 The large cellar under the barn, which is connected with the 

 hog-yard by an underground passage-way, furnishes a dry 

 sleeping apartment to the hogs, and the materials for increas- 

 ing still further the manure heap. 



From the nature of the soil here, it may be doubted whether 

 this manure, strong as it is, produces very permanent effects. 

 Land so light and gravelly, needs a large admixture of clay, to 

 retain the fertilizing properties of the animal manures applied 

 to it. If this can be obtained on the farm, or at a short dis- 

 tance from it, it might be carted on in the fall and winter, and 

 laid out in heaps, so as to be pulverized by the frosts, and then 

 srpead and ploughed in, in the spring. Clay is sometimes 

 found on silicious soils a few feet from the surface, and by dig- 

 ging pits at proper intervals, where this is the case, a supply 

 may be had, without much expense for transportation. 



Mr. Page has also employed the pauper labor of the farm 

 to advantage in reclaiming considerable tracts of low meadow 

 lands, — portions of which are yet waiting for similar improve- 

 ments, — and in draining run lands, both by surface ditches and 

 underdrains. We noticed one thing in the practice of Mr. 

 Page, and we understand that it is not uncommon with the 

 farmers and gardeners of Danvers, which has attracted much 

 attention in England, and which is there claimed as the result 

 of recent scientific investigations, but which has here been 

 practised for years with good eifects ; we allude to ploughing 

 in manures in the fall. 



The London Agricultural Gazette says that " Autumnal 

 manuring, immediately followed and covered by the plough, is 

 the most valvable discovery, perhaps, in its results, for which 

 agriculture has been indt bted to science." This statement is 

 founded upon the experiments of Professor Way, " who has 

 clearly established the fact that the soil has the peculiar prop- 

 erty of absorbing and appropriating all those elements of 

 manure intermixed with it, which are essential to the growth 



