134 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



may make manure," says Cato, " of stubble, lupines, bean 

 stalks, oak leaves, straw, and chaff. From the wheatfield pull 

 out the dwarf elder, hemlock, the tall grass, and reeds in the 

 willow plantations, and lay them below the cows and sheep." 

 Says Columella, " I am not ignorant that there are some farms 

 in the country so stinted that neither the dung of cattle nor 

 birds can be got. He is, however, a slothful husbandman that, 

 even under such circumstances, has no manure. For he may 

 collect many kinds of leaves, the cuttings of briers, and the rak- 

 ings of the highways ; he may cut ferns, which, though on the 

 fields of his neighbor, will rather be an advantage than injury 

 to him, and mix with the cleanings of the court yard ; he may 

 dig a hollow place, and throw into it ashes, the dirt of the ken- 

 nels, and jakes, all kinds of straw, and every thing that is swept 

 from the house." Again he says, " I think those husbandmen 

 are not diligent who from each of their lesser cattle in thirty 

 days make not a load of dung, and from each of their larger 

 cattle ten loads, and as many more from each of the men who 

 may collect not only what they make, but that which is pro- 

 duced daily in the court yard and house." 



Says Theophrastus, " Some advise to mix earths of different 

 qualities — for example, light with heavy, and heavy with light ; 

 fat with lean, and lean with fat; and, in like manner, red and 

 white and whatever has contrary qualities; because this mix- 

 ture supplies not only what is wanting, but also renders the 

 soil with which another is mixed more powerful, so that what 

 is worn out, being mixed with a fertile kind of earth, begins 

 again to carry crops as if renewed, and what is naturally bar- 

 ren, as clay, if mixed, is rendered fruitful; for one kind mixed 

 with another serves in some measure in the place of dung." 

 " This suggested the idea of trenching every fifth or sixth 

 year," says this writer, "by digging as deep as the rains 

 penetrate — thus turning up the bottom mould by which the 

 wheat fields arc renewed, and thus bringing up the virgin 

 earth to take the place of that which had been partially ex- 

 hausted by cropping." Columella also mentions the practice 

 of mixing earths of different qualities as having been performed 

 with great success by his uncle — a learned, skilful, and inJus- 



