142 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



seven hundred loads, and applied it to two other fields with 

 similar results. He has also taken muck from an ash swamp 

 with similar results. This mode of fertilization has caused 

 these worn-out fields to produce good crops of oats and grass, 

 as well as corn, where nothing scarcely grew before. 



Every farmer should place swamp muck or peat — and if he 

 cannot obtain these, loam will do — under his stable floors to 

 save the urine, most of which otherwise will be lost. Proper 

 economy will enable many farmers that think they are very 

 saving to make double the manure every year that they now 

 do. If the old maxim — " Money saved is as good as money 

 earned" — be true, then it is equally so, manure saved is as 

 good as manure bought. 



It was recently stated in an agricultural journal that the 

 United States now import about two hundred thousand tons of 

 guano annually, at an expense of two million six hundred thou- 

 sand dollars, furnishing, probably, not more than one farmer in 

 a hundred thousand with this costly fertilizer. To prevent this 

 importation, as well as the necessity of the purchasing of super- 

 phosphate and other expensive artificial fertilizers, it is proposed 

 that every family of four persons shall, by the due exercise of 

 the virtue of cleanliness within doors and about the immediate 

 premises, make annual^, or rather save, what shall equal a ton 

 of guano. Thus might two hundred thousand families save by 

 skill and care what now costs the country two million six hun- 

 dred thousand dollars. Add to this what might be made by 

 those who keep a cow, hog, and horse, with the poultry yard, 

 and you would have what would equal another ton for every 

 family establishment. Thus might be saved, were this econ- 

 omy introduced throughout the United States, a quantity of 

 manurial substance equal to two hundred thousand tons of 

 guano, which, at fifty-eight dollars per ton, the price of guano, 

 would equal eleven million six hundred thousand dollars per 

 annum. 



Thus it would seem that if every farmer and consumer of 

 Earth's products would save all, by taking heed that nothing 

 which can be use I as a fertilizer of the tilled and cropped 

 soil be wasted, the necessity of importing manures or pur- 

 chasii aosphate would soon be known only as con- 



