APPENDIX TO MR. FAY's ADDRESS. 23 



Manure that is well rotted should be spread on the dryesl ground, and be 

 thoroughly mixed with the soil, being first ploughed under to a moderate 

 depth, and then harrowed fine. Straw that has soaked a few weeks under 

 the manure of the stock, is in good condition to be ploughed under in the 

 spring. For old worn out ridges, or light, dry land, swamp muck is a pow- 

 erful fertilizer, being nearly equal to stable man«re. When lime does not 

 exist in the soil, and wheat is to be sowed, it is advised that four or five 

 bushels of lime be applied, annually, to each acre. When gypsum is used, 

 two bushels per acre, when the soil is dry, are sufficient. The quantity to 

 be applied must, however, be decided according to circumstances. 



Plaster, ashes, guano, and many other articles, are in extensive use among 

 farmers, but their application in some cases results in signal success, and 

 in others results in signal failure, so that it is quite dithcult to say when and 

 how they should be used. Hen manure is also a valuable fertilizer; it may 

 be saved through the year, and in the spring taken when dry and reduced to 

 a powder, after which it may be incorporated with equal parts of ashes and 

 gypsum ; a half pint of this compound put into each hill of corn, will some- 

 times give astonishing vigor to the growth of the plant, and add much to 

 the crop. It relation to plaster, it has been observed that hilly lands, espec- 

 ially when the soil is a clayey loam, are frequently much benefitted by it- 

 The quantity used, in such cases, is one bushel per acre, sowed on the land 

 in the spring of the year, for a succession of seasons, the good effects being- 

 much more obvious some years than others, — sometimes being seen the 

 first year, and in other instances not until the second or third season. Plas- 

 ter also is profitably used in being scattered upon the barn floor, where 

 cattle are kept, to take up and retain the ammonia arising from their excre- 

 ments, and for the same purpose it is often scattered over the manure heap, 

 adding much to its fertilizing properties ; a small quantity of plaster thrown 

 upon potato vines is often beneficial. 



Another practice in the economy of manure worthy to be repeated is as 

 follows :-^Plaster, lime, salt and ashes, slacked and unslacked, are mixed 

 with the manure of the yard and stables, the mixing being done wdiile the 

 latter are forming, so as to prevent, as far as possible, any escape of the 

 extract or ley, from the yard, or otherwise, by evaporation ; long or strawy 

 manure is thrown into the heaps in season to have fermentation take place, 

 and slow combustion considerably advanced, before it is to be drawn upon 

 the fiekl for the hay crop ; the fermentation process is thought to destroy 

 most of the seeds of weed.s, with which unfermeuted manure is usually 

 infested. 



