150 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the sink, with mud, loam, weeds, ashes, &c. We have kept 

 from five to ten swine the past season, and made and applied 

 to my farm three hundred and seventy-six loads, of forty cubic 

 feet per load. 



Statement of Orsamus Littlejohn. 



My swamp mud, is of that kind in which skunks' cabbage de- 

 lights to grow. My barn cellar, yards, and vaults are kept 

 well supplied with this muck, to absorb all the liquids that 

 should be saved for the compost heap and keep the air pure. 

 These vaults, &c, are cleaned out twice a year, and heaped up 

 with more muck, rich loam, (to give weight,) burned oyster 

 shells, refuse salt, ashes, and water sufficient to thoroughly wet 

 the whole mass. It is then covered over with dry mud, coal 

 dust or soil, and left to ferment and become healthy for the 

 soil and crops. In this way I have made, the past year, three 

 hundred and twenty-five loads (of forty cubic feet) of manure, 

 worth more for porous soils and rotation of crops than com- 

 mon stable manure is, in my opinion, but costing less than one 

 cent the cubic foot. I charge nothing for the droppings of the 

 stock or the mud, as it lies in the meadow. 



Statement of Nahum Snell. 



Having entered as a competitor for the premium offered by 

 the Plymouth County Agricultural Society to the person who 

 shall make the greatest quantity of compost manure, I will 

 state, that I have drawn out the past year three hundred and 

 fifteen loads of manure, made from the droppings of ten head of 

 cattle and four horses into a barn cellar, where have been 

 kept from ten to twenty hogs, and carting muck from a swamp, 

 and loam sufficient to absorb the moisture ; then I had the ben- 

 efit of four privies, together with a quantity of ashes col- 

 lected from turf and bushes, which I drew from a swamp where 

 I collected muck. 



