198 MANURES ON THE FARM. 



pared chiefly in Providence, R. I., and is for sale in the 

 market at a very reasonable price. 



The MANURES used in this country in the culture 

 of the plants mentioned above are mostly such as are 

 made on the farm, consisting chiefly of barn-yard com- 

 posts of various kinds, with often a large admixture of 

 peat-mud. There are few farms that do not contain 

 substances which, if properly husbanded, would add 

 very greatly to the amount of manure ordinarily made. 

 The best of the concentrated manures, which it is some- 

 times necessary to use, for want of time and labor to 

 prepare enough on the farm, is, unquestionably, Peru- 

 vian guano. The results of this, when properly ap- 

 plied, are well known and reliable, which can hardly be 

 said of any other artificial manure oifered for the farm- 

 er's notice. The chief objection to depending on man- 

 ures made off the farm is, in the first place, their great 

 expense ; and in the second, which is equally important, 

 the fact that, though they may be made valuable, and 

 produce at one time the best results, a want of care in 

 the manufacture, or designed fraud, may make them 

 almost worthless, with the impossibility of detecting 

 the imposition, without a chemical analysis, till it be- 

 comes too late, and the crop is lost. 



It is, therefore, safest to rely mainly upon the home 

 manufacture of manure. The extra expense of soiling 

 cattle, saving and applying the liquid manure, and thus 

 bringing the land to a higher state of cultivation, 

 when it will be capable of keeping more stock, and of 

 furnishing more manure, would offer a surer road to suc- 

 cess than a constant outlay for concentrated fertilizers. 



The various articles used for top-dressing grass lands, 

 and the management of grass arid pasture lands, have been 

 treated of in detail in the work already alluded to, on 

 the CULTURE OF GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



