194 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



During the last season I liavc also made a great quantity of 

 compost in my barn cellar. The cellar is entered by two 

 drains, conveying offal, as well as all the sink water, from two 

 families. To absorb this, I use a great quantity of peat, with 

 chips, fine coal ashes and sods. My stock consisted of four 

 cows and three horses during the winter, and an additional 

 cow and. a calf during the summer, always housed at night, 

 with five hogs throughout the year to tend the manure. I 

 have carted in some loam, but mostly half decomposed salt 

 and fresh peat, sea and rock-weed. These are frequently 

 spread with the manure, and dug over on rainy days. Six or 

 eight horse-cart loads of the gas lime, and three-quarters of a 

 ton of plaster, used in part in the stalls, were scattered from 

 time to time. In this manner before June, I carted out five 

 hundred and nine loads, of about thirty cubic feet, and have 

 now, in addition, two compost heaps taken from the cellar 

 since June, containing about fifty cords, making in all, one 

 hundred and sixty cords of barn compost. 



Having occasion to ditch some salt meadow, I have also 

 collected a large quantity of salt peat and sod, some of which 

 was used, when thoroughly dry and as light as a sponge, as 

 bedding for horses, first chopping it into small sponges. 



I have now in heaps from seventy-five to eighty cords of this 

 salt peat, some of wliich was cut two years since, and the 

 balance last fall. It decays slowly. I have not tried a solu- 

 tion of salt dissolved in water and mixed with quick lime, as 

 recommended by some, for the speedy manufacture of compost 

 from vegetable matters, because the salt peat is so open, and 

 the sods so large and free, that I feared they would not hold 

 the mixture to advantage unless used in great quantities. Some 

 of these heaps are mixed with the gas lime and coal ashes, but 

 they decompose slowly. A portion containing about ten cords 

 of salt meadow deposit and old sods, is decomposed, 



Mr. Howard has recently stated that he was satisfied that salt 

 peat did not make a good manure, but he has given no particu- 

 lars nor statistics. It is to be hoped that some one will give us 

 more reliable information upon the subject ; namely, the value 

 of salt peat, and the best and speediest method of composting 

 it. Such information would ])e of great benefit to farmers upon 

 the seaboard. We find allusion to it in agricultural works, but 



