GRAIN CROPS. 143 



Now what is the remedy ? 



Meadow muck or peat is generally most accessible, and comes 

 within the reach of most farms. It is well known that when 

 peat has been thrown into piles to season, for months after it 

 is still wet, it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and re- 

 tains it similar to that of a sponge, and will hold from fifty to 

 one hundred per cent, of its own weight of water, according 

 to its porosity. Nor does it part with it very rapidly; it dries 

 almost as slowly as clay. Now, if twenty loads of muck to the 

 acre be spread and ploughed in for three successive years it 

 will make about one inch more of soil and a sufficient quantity 

 for the purpose of retaining the moisture and preventing the 

 escape of ammonia. Soils of this character, and thus treated, 

 as they are easily cultivated, would probably pay a better per 

 cent, in some hoed crop than to remain in pasture and get no 

 return from them except wiry grass, hard-hack and mullein. 



It is well known to farmers generally that light, sandy soils 

 are subject to frequent and rapid changes of temperature ; that 

 is, they follow the changes of the atmosphere from hot to cold 

 and from cold to hot. In a hot summer's day they are hardly 

 endurable to the touch, yet on these soils the frost makes its 

 first appearance. If to soils thus subject to quick changes a 

 heavy dressing of meadow-muck be applied, they will not, on 

 the one hand, become so warm in a hot day, nor on the other 

 cool so rapidly nor so much in the night. The temperature 

 becomes more even, and consequently more conducive to vege- 

 tation. This regulating power is due in a measure to the stores 

 of water held by the peat. In a hot day this water is constantly 

 evaporating, causing a cooling process. At night, the peat ab- 

 sorbs moisture from the air and condenses it in its pores, pro- 

 ducing an accumulation of heat. It is the opinion of those 

 that have used peat, that twenty loads of it, witli one load of 

 leached ashes and one load of yard manure, are of more value 

 than the same amount of barn manure ; and one part of Pacific 

 guano, mixed with eight or ten of peat, is an excellent fertilizer, 

 if placed in the hill, for beans or potatoes. If our vaults, pig- 

 pens, hen-roosts and horse-stables were constantly deodorized 

 with peat it would add greatly to our manure heaps and well 

 pay the expense. 



