APPENDIX. 



ITEMS ABOUT SOILS AND MANURES. 



(Article referred to in note on page 13.) 



Manure is like gold to the farmer, — his mine, from which all his gains 

 are extracted. A French writer has tersely remarked, that crops are always 

 in direct proportion to the manure which the farmer uses, and that it is not 

 the largest area which gives the most profit, but that which is best tilled, 

 and especially that which is best manured. A small farm, well cultivated 

 and well manured, will give a greater clear profit than a large one, where 

 the same labor and the same quantity of dressing are employed on a greater 

 ■extent of surface. This is doubtless the experience of every farmer who 

 has tried both ways of managing. 



Manure is the basis of agricultural prosperity and success. With a suffi- 

 cient quantity of this, the hardest and most unpromising soils may be made 

 fruitful and abundant. The most valuable kind of manure is, unquestion- 

 ably, that obtained from the stable, agreeing best, as it does, with all kinds 

 of land, plants, and modes of culture. Even if other and more energetic 

 manures be employed, this can never be wholly dispensed with, and they 

 are used, or should be, rather to augment its action than in attempts to re- 

 place it, for other manures are not plentiful or accessible enough to 

 supercede the use of stable manure, and, as a general thing, cultivation 

 would be impossible without it. 



In the same degree as the product of farming depends not on the area 

 cultivated, but on the culture bestowed and the enriching of the soil, does 

 the greater quantity of manure depend not so much on the greatest number 

 of animals, but on the greatest amount of fodder consumed. Animals do 

 not produce of themselves, they only transform the fodder they consume, part 

 of it being assimilated to their sustenance and growth, and a part becoming 

 excrement or manure, the latter being more fertilizing, the more nourish- 

 ment is furi\ished the animals. A lean beast makes less manure than a fat 



