MANURES. 151 



Statement of Austin J. Roberts. 



Being a competitor for the greatest quantity of compost ma- 

 nure, I have drawn up the following statement : My barn, sixty 

 by forty feet, contains a cellar, extending' its whole length and 

 width. This cellar is divided into various compartments for 

 swine, and is used entirely and exclusively for the whole of our 

 summer and winter accumulations of manure. A large barn 

 yard is attached to the cellar, which is, however, of little or no 

 use in the manufacturing of manure, as, from repeated trials, I 

 have found the value of dung greatly enhanced by being secured 

 from the effects of the sun in summer, and of frost and the 

 drenching rains in winter. Our horses and cattle are well lit- 

 tered or bedded down with straw and coarse hay the year 

 round. Their droppings are thrown into the sties in the cellar 

 below, there to be worked over and incorporated by the hogs 

 with muck, peat, straw, dirt, and refuse vegetable matter, 

 weekly thrown in. On all this, barrels of chamber lye, and the 

 suds of the wash house, are poured from time to time. I con- 

 sider that manure is one of the most important objects in the 

 business of rearing swine, and. think that, by proper manage- 

 ment, store pigs will pay for their keeping by the manure they 

 make. My practice is, to haul out all the manure required for 

 the crops into the fields where it is to be used, and there 

 to compost with muck, dug the autumn of the previous year. 

 This is usually done in March ; and a compost thus made of one- 

 third muck and two-thirds manure is the best that can be applied 

 to sandy loams. My compost manure, since November, 1853, 

 amounts to three hundred and three loads of forty cubic feet. 

 On account of being housed and well prepared, I consider the 

 quality of my manure far better than that made in the ordina- 

 ry way. 



