140 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Tho following directions for making compost manure are 

 taken from Sprengel's late work on Manures. The right was 

 patented in Germany : — 



" First, take a layer of twenty inches in thickness of straw 

 dung, or straw, dry leaves, weeds, potato stems, turf, muck, or 

 marl. This is to be wet with dung water, or common water, 

 and covered with night soil, poultry dung, street sweepings, 

 pulverized bones, offal, kitchen slops, &c. 



"Next, one-fourth of an inch of coal or wood ashes. 



" Then three inches of good earth mould, or marl. 



" Then eighteen inches of horse, sheep, or cattle dung — wet- 

 ting it again with urine or common water. Then cover with 

 a layer of pond mud, ditch scrapings, mould, muck, or marl. 



" Next, one-fourth of an inch of coal or wood ashes ; and 

 then a second course of straw dung, ashes, mould, or marl, 

 horse, sheep, or cattle dung, with a final covering of mud, muck, 

 or marl. From two to three weeks in summer, and from four 

 to six weeks in winter, are required for the fermentation. If 

 in any part of the mass the heat be too great, it should again 

 be covered with loam or mud and wet with water. If any 

 part does not ferment, holes are made, that the air may reach 

 these parts. When the mass is properly fermented and the 

 substances decomposed, it should be well wet with water, 

 worked over, put up in heaps from six to eight feet high, and 

 covered with rich loam to the thickness of ten or twelve inches. 

 After standing a few days, it may be carried to the fields and 

 harrowed in with the grain, or ploughed in for other crops." 



Farmers are not yet fully aware of the treasure they have 

 in their peat swamps. Dr. Dana, of Lowell, has done more, 

 perhaps, than any other scientific man to develop the value of 

 these collections of decayed vegetable matter. Experience 

 and science have taught the farmer how to use these vegetable 

 deposits of manurial substances. To bring out the ammonia, 

 tho muck, whether peat or mud, must be fermented — which 

 may be effected cither by the use of alkalies or compostiug 

 with fresh stable manures. Take from fifteen to twenty bush- 

 els of ashes, or potash ninety pounds, or soda about sixty, to 

 a ton of peat. Such a compost will contain about the same 

 amount of ammonia as cow dung. One of the best methods 



