APPENDIX TO MR. FAY's ADDRESS. 21 



■one, and a well fed one gives twice as much as a poorly fed one; so that 

 the greatest quantity of fodder consumed in the management of the farm, 

 insures the most solid prosperity. For, whenever much and good fodder is 

 produced, there is also produced much good manure, and whenever there 

 is a sufficient quantity of manure, there will be good harvests. 



The preparation and application of manures are points of great importance 

 in the economy of farming. In reference to the former, an intelligent writer 

 on the subject has laid down one important fact to be observed, namely, the 

 solubility of many of the substances composing farm-yard dung. According 

 to the common mode of preparation, a large quantity of straw and excre- 

 ment is allowed to rot in the midst of a mass of water, where, instead of a 

 genial heat being produced, it is washed by the water, which, satura- 

 ted with valuable matter, is unwisely suffered to run away, involving a 

 loss of the most valuable constituents of the dung, — its potash, its soda, a 

 large portion of its ammonia, and its soluble salts of lime. One of the best 

 methods is to make layers of animal excrements with straw, on a mould 

 bottom ; on this lay a foot or so of manure and straw, a little gypsum over 

 that, and sometimes a little mould ; then another layer and so on, covering 

 the whole with six or eight inches of ditch stuff, or some other appropriate 

 substance. 



As to the particular value of certain kinds of manure and composts, and 

 especially the comparative value of animal, vegetable and mineral manures, 

 it would be an easy matter to fill volumes with accounts of the various 

 experiments which have been made, and the diverse opinions put forth, 

 during the last twenty years. Prof. Liebig was, but is not at the present 

 time, an ardent advocate of the ultra ammonia theory, as it is called ; he 

 has more recently thrown the weight of his opinion in favor of the mineral 

 manures. The late Prof. Norton, of Yale College, differed with the great 

 trans-atl antic chemist, on this point, though by no means doubting the value 

 of mineral manures, — this description of the constituents of plants being as 

 important, in his estimation, as its organic part, and, if one or two of them 

 are absent from the soil, the plant will not flourish. There are, in fact, 

 many instances of these special deficiencies which special mineral manures 

 will alone supply, and there are certain mineral substances which have 

 been found specially valuable ; such, for instance, as phosphoric acid, the 

 phosphates of which are not more necessary to the plant, than are the alka- 

 lies, but the supply is apt to be far more frequently of scanty character than 

 in the case with the alkalies, and this is the cause of its higher value to the 

 farmer. The same principle (according to Prof. Norton,) applies when we 



