FARMS. 25 



length under my stables, and built a cellar of stone and mortar 

 la rue enough to hold fifteen hundred bushels of roots. The 

 cellar under where my cattle and horses stand holds all the 

 liquids and solids dropped during about eight months of the 

 year. The bottom of the cellar is clay, and holds all the 

 liquids that are not absorbed. About two feet of loam are 

 placed on the bottom of the cellar, as soon as the manure is 

 carted out, in September of each year. My open barn yard 

 rests on a clay bottom, and is so constructed, by being lowest 

 in the centre, that all the washings, by rain or otherwise, con- 

 centrate there. Subsoil from my most clayed under-drainage 

 is carted into this yard each fall, and permitted to remain until 

 the following spring, where it receives the droppings of the 

 cattle, and mixes with the waste corn buts and straw from the 

 mangers. The yard is ploughed the last of May or first of 

 June, and fifteen or twenty ox cartloads of manure taken from 

 the barn cellar and laid in the centre of the yard lengthwise ; 

 an ox shovel is then used to bring the outskirts of manure into 

 a row in the centre of the yard ; common salt is dissolved in 

 water at the rate of a peck to the ox load, and thrown on to 

 the heap until it is completely saturated ; it leaches out into 

 the trenches by the side of the manure heap and is thrown 

 back on to the heap every few days, thus keeping the whole 

 mass wet until within a few days of the time it is wanted for 

 dressing grass or other crops. It is thrown over and permit- 

 ted to dry before carting out. 



I should have stated that loam or subsoil was spread over 

 the yard, immediately after the above heap was scraped up, to 

 absorb the urine, while all the solids dropped by yarding the 

 cows for the four summer months were gathered up each morn- 

 ing and thrown on to the main heap of compost. About one 

 hundred and fifty loads are made in this way, and used princi- 

 pally for dressing my natural mowing, cither as a top dressing, 

 or where the old field has required re-sccding and ploughing. 

 That taken from the barn cellar, as well as from the pigsty, is 

 used for corn, potatoes, and other vegetables ; about one hun- 

 dred and fifty loads are annually made in these two depart- 

 ments. Other compost heaps are annually made with loam 

 and spent lye from the soap shop. Leached wood ashes from 



