AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 187 



In the fall, it may be added, that it is a season of greater 

 leisure; and although it is confidently asserted, that the 

 manure is wasted by rains and snows, yet much ought to be 

 allowed on the other side for the protection afforded by the 

 top-dressing to the tender roots of the plants during winter ; 

 and ought we not to add something for the low temperature 

 of the atmosphere in winter, which prevents evaporation? 

 whatever principles of fertility exist in manure, are in win- 

 ter carried down into the soil. We are fully convinced that 

 a scorching sun and drying air are more pernicious to ma- 

 nures spread thinly over the surface than any drenching 

 rains can be, unless on declivities, w^here top-dressings are un- 

 questionably of less value than on level grounds. The fact 

 that farmers who grow rich by supplying the great towns 

 with hay generally adopt the practice of fall dressing their 

 grass lands, deserves weight. 



Top-dressing should not be used in the fall for winter 

 grain, because they would be apt to make the young plants 

 come forward too fast and grow so rank that they would be 

 liable to be winter-killed. Top-dressing foi wheat, rye, &c. 

 should be applied to the growing crop in the spring or early 

 in the summer, when it is suspected that the land is not rich 

 enough to bring a full crop to perfection. 



With regard to the materials for dressing your grass 

 grounds, after your garden is supplied with manure, you may 

 as well cart on to your mowing land all that you can collect 

 from your barn-yards, your stercoraries or dung-heaps, hog- 

 pens, compost beds, night soil, &;c. &c. &c. All sorts of 

 dung, however, before being applied to grass land, should be 

 well mixed with loam, sand, or some kind of earth which 

 will imbibe the gas or effluvia of the dung or putrescent 

 manure. We have said before, in substance, that all kinds 

 of putrescent manure (that is, those animal or vegetable 

 substances which are liable to putrefy, mould, and be wasted 

 when exposed to the sun and air) are in a great measure 

 thrown away, if applied to the surface of the soil before 

 being made into compost. "^ ' Spreading putrescent sub- 

 stances upon the surface of a field of grass ground, is to ma- 

 nure not the soil, but the atmosphere ; and is justly con- 

 demned as the most injudicious plan that can be devised in 

 an arable district.'! If dung not made into compost nor 



* New England Farmer, vol. i. p. 321. f Code of Agriculture. 



