178 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



cause putrescent matter can only beconne vegetable food by- 

 its resolution into primary parts, and if this be effected by 

 any preparatory step, the young crop receives the full and 

 instantaneous benefit. The compost manure is carried to 

 the field ready to give out its richness on the very first call, 

 and to supply the nascent radicle [young root] with a copi- 

 ous share of nourishment. 



' The putrefactive process may be carried on in the pre- 

 sence of pure earth only, or of earth intermingled with fibrous 

 roots, or lastly in the presence of peat, which is an assem- 

 blage of inert vegetable matter, and compost dunghills may 

 be formed according to this threefold method. 



' The simplest of all composts is a mixture of barn-yard 

 dung and surface mould taken fr-^m a field under regular 

 culture. The proportions between the ingredients are fixed 

 by no determinate laws, and consequently great liberty is 

 allowable to the operator. I have known some instances 

 where two cart-loads of dung Avere used for one of earth ; 

 Others where they were blended in equal quantities ; and it 

 "ig not unfrequent to compound two of earth with one of dung. 

 In fact such is the uncertainty in the composition, that al- 

 most every farmer adopts one peculiar to himself, and with 

 equal success. No man need therefore follow implicitly the 

 rules which have been laid down in this department of rural 

 economy, but may vary and multiply his experiments, ac- 

 cording to the suggestions of fancy or the dictates of con- 

 venience. If we slightly glance at the principle, we shall 

 see the cause of this seemingly endless variety in the com- 

 binations of the ingredients. The only use of intermixing 

 the soil \v:th the dung is to imbibe the gaseous elements of 

 vegetable life, and hinder their dissipation. If there be much 

 soil, these elements will be diffused through it with loss den- 

 sity and compression ; if little, it will be more al/undantly 

 saturated and enriched with the nutritive vapors. The only 

 error into which the farmer can run is to supply such an in- 

 considerable quantity of soil as will be incapable of im- 

 bibing the elastic and volatile particles, and thus by his own 

 mismanagement occasion a waste of the vegetable aliment. 

 One cart-load of soil to two of stable dung is the least pro- 

 portion which he should ever attempt to combine, and per- 

 haps if the two were mixed equally, he would be compensa- 

 ted for the additional labor and expense. 



' Simple earth, although excellent for bottoming and 

 strewing over the pit dug near the barn, is of all materials 



