78 THE FARM. 



Top-Dressing. — Some farmers thiuk that top-clressing with manure is 

 best done during the winter. In the fall the manure, unless very tine and 

 evenly spread, will cover up injuriously much of the plant. When spread 

 in winter, on the contrary, it acts as a mulch and a protection while the 

 plant is dormant, neiitralizing the effects of freezing and thawing. An au- 

 thority on the subject advises that artificial fertilizers be spread on grain 

 lauds in the fall, and barnyard maniire after the snow comes. 



Improving Lilglit Soil. — The best way to improve a light sandy soil is 

 to put on all the vegetable matter yoxi can, either in the form of muck from 

 swamps, or by turiiiug under peas, buckwheat, clover, or some similar crop. 

 If the laud is very porous, more or less of the fertilizing materials applied 

 will sink out of the reach of ordinary crops. Your main point is to get the 

 land full of vegetable matter, not only to increase its fertility, but to m'ike it 

 hold moisture in summer. 



Liquid Manure. — The liquid voidiugs of animals are worth more (good 

 authorities say one-sixth more), pound for pound, than the solid excrements, 

 and are saved with greater care by the best European farmers and gar- 

 deners. All the leaks in the stable are not in the roof; those often in the 

 floor are quite as objectionable, and are the cause of a great deal of wastage. 

 Make the istablc iloor tight, with a gutter at the heels of the stock to carry it 

 off to an adjacent tank, or into a heap of muck or other absorbent. 



Suving Fertilizers — One of the most prevalent errors among average 

 farmers ia the neglect of making and preserving manure, and also its im- 

 proper application to the ground. Collect all the refuse material you can, 

 use your chip chrt from the wood pile in absorbing liquids. Apply it to the 

 flat lauds at any time during winter. It can then be thrown on broadcast 

 and i^lowed in as soon as the groiind opens. The necessity of returning a.s 

 much vegetable nutriment to the ground as has been taken ofi" by the crop 

 cannot be too strongly impressed upon the attention of our farmei-s. 



' Hoiv to Apply Manure. — The old plan of plowing under manure has 

 pretty much been abandoned by many fanners as wasteful. Advanced 

 farming believes and teaches that the intimate and thorough incorporation 

 of the fertilizing principle, into that portion of the soil which is to be occu- 

 pied inunefliately by roots of the growing crop, is a tiiith taught by experi- 

 ence on all soils, and in all cUmates, and the more evenly and thoroughly 

 this is done the more surely will the crop be satisfactory. 



Spreailiug Manure. — An English writer says: " The wasteful practice 

 of spreading manure on surface of the soil, and allowing it to lie bleaching 

 lur weeks, and even months before being plowed in, is still earrietl on in 

 some counties in England, and stoutly defended by hosts of clay land 

 fanners," and he expi-esses the opinion that "if the perpetratoi's of such 

 an enormity be right, science is at fault, analysis is an illusion, and am- 

 monia and all its kindred a family of impostors." 



Mixing Manure in AVInter. — "When teams are not otherwise employed 

 in the winter it is a good plan to draw the pile of lioi'so manure around 

 hoi-se stables and spread it over the heaps of cattle and sheep excrement. 

 The manure of the horse and the cow especially are admirable supplements 

 each to the other, that from the horse being naturally too active and that 

 from the cow too slow. Enough bedding should be placed under horses to 

 ftbttorb all their Utjuid excvemcnt, so that none bo Avastecl, 



