80 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



dung will be improved, and the quantity proportionably in- 

 creased. Any excess of liquid that may remain after the 

 dung is removed in the spring, can be profitably applied to 

 grass, grain, or garden crops. It is used extensively in 

 Flanders, and in other parts of Europe. 



Having explained my method of procuring and preserving 

 the food of vegetables, I will proceed to state my practice in 

 feeding or applying it. It is given, every spring, to such 

 hoed crops as will do well upon coarse food, (my vegetable 

 hogs and goats.) These are corn, potatoes, ruta baga, beans, 

 and cabbages. These consume the coarser particles of the 

 manure, which would have been lost during the summer in 

 the yard; while the plough, harrow, and hoe eradicate the 

 weeds which spring from the seeds it scatters. The finer 

 parts of the food are preserved in the soil, to nourish the 

 small grains which follow. The dung is spread upon the 

 land as evenly as possible, and immediately turn3d under 

 with the plough. It is thereby better distributed for the 

 next crop, and becomes intimately mixed and incorporated 

 with the soil by subsequent tillage. Thus, upon the data 

 which I feel warranted in assuming, a farmer who keeps 

 twenty horses and neat cattle will obtain from his yards and 

 stables, every spring, two hundred loads of manure, besides 

 what is made in summer, and the product of his hogsty. 

 With this he may manure annually ten or twelve acres of 

 corn, potatoes, &c., and manure it well. And if a proper 

 rotation of crops is adopted, he will be able to keep in good 

 heart, and progressively to improve, sixty acres of tillage 

 land, so that each field shall be manured once every four or 

 five years, on the return of the corn and potato crop. 



DAIRY. The celebrated Arthur Young has the follow- 

 ing remarks on this subject. 



' Unless the farmer has a very diligent and industrious 

 wife, who sees minutely to her dairy, or a most honest, dili- 

 gent, and careful housekeeper to do it for him, he will assur- 

 edly lose money by his dairy ; trusted to common servants, 

 it will not pay charges. The dairymaid must be up every 

 morning at four o'clock, or she will be backward in her 

 business. At five the cows must be milked, and there rrust 

 be milkers enough to finish by six. The same rule must be 

 observed in the evening. 



