MANURES. 193 



the American Muck Book, p, 336. I have also seen a private 

 letter from Professor Mapes, recommending it highly for com- 

 posts with peat. 



The liquor is too powerful to apply alone to land as a top- 

 dressing, but should be diluted with three or four times its 

 bulk of water. When applied to peat, it should be well mixed. 

 It eats up the raw peat very rapidly, and I have found my heaps 

 sufficiently fine by digging them over once about six months 

 after applying it undiluted to the sour, green peat. An appli- 

 cation of a few cords of it upon Timothy, on dry land, after 

 mowing, had a most astonishing effect in forcing a second 

 crop, after a shower. Tliis was doubtless owing to the quantity 

 of ammonia in it. It has been suggested that, like guano, 

 its effects from this cause alone may be short-lived. But the 

 beneficial effects of the peat,, even as a mulcher alone, upon 

 our dry meadows, I think are much undervalued. 



During the past season I have made, in this manner, from 

 fresh peat and muck alone, about sixty cords of compost mea- 

 sured after it was made. One of the most remarkable, as well 

 as discouraging, features of peat composts to the laborer is the 

 great loss in bulk during its manufacture. Dr. Dana, in his 

 valuable " Muck Manual," states that " peat, dried at 240° F., 

 loses 73 to 97 per cent, of water. When allowed to drain and 

 dry as it will, it still contains about two-thirds of its weight of 

 water. It shrinks from two-thirds to three-quarters of its bulk. 

 A cord wet becomes one-quarter to one-third of a cord when 

 dry. To compare its value with cow manure, equal bulks 

 must be taken ; and hence to dry peat a bulk of water must be 

 supposed to be added in proportion above stated ; or, still better, 

 because easily done, the pile of dry peat is to be estimated by 

 the pit left after digging." He goes on to state, that the fresh 

 peat thus measured differs little from the same bulk of fresh 

 cow dung, so far as salts, water and geine are concerned, 

 differing only from the cow dung in the lacking clement of 

 ammonia. This element, I suppose, is supplied to a great 

 extent, by the gas house water ; and then, if Dr. Dana's state- 

 ment be true, a cord of the peat compost would be worth three 

 or four cords of fresh cow manure, and more than four cords of 

 the cow manure as it is found mixed with the bedding in the 

 heap. But I claim no wisdom in these matters. 



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