76 THE FARM. 



leached or unleached, are excellent. The contents of the closet may be kept 

 inodorous, and in an easily workable condition, by casting plaster on them 

 frequently until removed, and then by adding four times as much more of 

 muck or loam, you will have a fertilizer equal to poudrctte. Bones, old 

 boots and shoes, hogs' bristles, and all old scraps, which would otherwise 

 lie about as nuisances and eyesores to all who see them, may be made solu- 

 ble and fit for fertili2dng by burying them in unleached ashes, with an occa- 

 sional slight Avatering and stiiTing of the heap, and addition of ashes, until 

 reduced to a proper state for pulverizing. The pig should be supplied with 

 all the weeds you can gather before they seed, and peat, muck, turf, etc., if 

 thrown into his yard, he will work over, and pay for his keeping by largely 

 increasing the amount of manure. He will work over ten or twelve loads if 

 given to him. 



Clover as a Fertilizer. — A stick of wood burned on the surface mostly 

 passes off in gas, leaving only the ashes; but the same stick if bumed in a 

 coal-pit, excluded from the air, forms a mass of carbon of nearly or quite its 

 original size. Now all decay of vegetable matter is a slow combustion, and 

 when this is done under the soil, not only the gases retained in the soil, but 

 more carbon is formed, and this carbon has the power to appropriate the 

 valuable gases always present in the atmosphere. The great value of clover 

 as a fertilizer is due, first to the cai-bon furnished by the decay of the plant, 

 and second to the fine mechanical effect on the soil, which renders it porous, 

 so that the atmosphere i^enetratea it and deposits plant food. It is clear that 

 better fertiUzing effects will result from the plowing down of the crop to 

 decay in the soil. Ordinarily more can be made out of the tops than they are 

 worth for manure, and if rightly managed, the roots will supply the needed 

 fertility. 



HoiioLe-nxade Superpliospliate. — A Western journal remarks that 

 almost every farmer has upon his own premises one of the best superphos- 

 phate manures known. The elements are found in the old bones, scattered 

 carelessly over yard, garden and farm, and common wood ashes, generally 

 allowed to go to waste. If the bones are gathered, placed under shelter, 

 thoroughly mixed with three or four times their bulk of ashes, kept moist 

 with water enough to make a good lye and occasionally stirred and mixed, 

 they will, in a few months, become so tender and friable that they may be 

 pounded into powder, and in this state they form a valuable manure, better 

 than the average of the commercial fertilizers that seem so expensive. The 

 ashes, of course, should be mixed with the bones. The fertilizer thiis made 

 should be applied by the handful iu the hill of corn, and its effects may be 

 early seen in the deep, rich green of the growing plant. This may seem like 

 small business to a farmer who has but little spare time, but it is by just such 

 economy that our best farms become so profitable, and it is by lack of such 

 economy that so many farms fail to yield even a comfortable living. 



Soap SuA :. — The value of this article as a stimulant of vegetable life can- 

 not be too highly appreciated. It contains the aliment of plants in a state of 

 ready solution, and when applied, acts not only with immediate and obvious 

 effect, but with a sustained energy which pertains to few even of the most 

 concentrated manures. When it is not convenient — the most economical 

 method, perhaps, of using it — it should be absorbed by materials which may 

 be used as an ingredient in the compost heap. Suds, muck, and other 

 similar articles, should be deposited where the suda from the sink and 



