COMPOST MANUKES. 49 



ble of the advantages arising from the manuring of their fields, that 

 they Avere very careful in finding out and collecting all such things as 

 were found proper for the purpose. They carefully gathered the dung 

 of their cattle — littered them with straw or stubble which they mixed 

 with the droppings of the animals — collected all kinds of ashes — dif- 

 ferent kinds of earth — burned trees, shrubs and stubble in their fields 

 for the ashes — and frequently sowed pulse — not cereal grains — to 

 plough in as a green manure. " You may make manure," says Ca- 

 to, "of stubbles, lupines, bean-stalks, oak-leaves, straw and chaff". 

 From the wheat-field, pull oiit the dwarf elder, hemlock, the till 

 grass, and reeds in the willow plantations, and lay them below the 

 cows and sheep." Says Columella, " I am not ignorant that there 

 are some farms so stinted in the country, that neither the dung of 

 cattle nor birds can be got. lie is, however, a slothful husbandman, 

 that, even under such circumstances, has no manure. For he may 

 collect many kinds of leaves, the cuttings of briers and the rakings af 

 the highways ; he may cut ferns, which, though on the fields of his 

 neighbor, will rather be an advantage than injury to him, and mix 

 with the cleanings of the court-yard ; he may dig a hollow place 

 and throw into it ashes, the dirt of the kennels, and jakes, all kinds 

 of straw and everything that is swept froiH the house." Again he 

 says, " I think those husbandmen are not diligent, who, from each of 

 their lesser cattle in thirty days make not a load of dung, and from 

 each of their larger cattle ten loads — and as many mctfe from each of 

 the men who may collect what they make, not only, but that which 

 is produced daily by the court-yard and house." 



Says Theophrastus, " Some advise to mix earths of different quali- 

 ties — for example, light with heavy and heavy with light — fat with 

 lean and lean with fat ; — and in like manner, red and white and 

 whatever has contrary qualities ; because this mixture supplies, not 

 only, what is wanting, but, also, renders the soil, Avith which another 

 is mixed, more powerful, so that what is worn out, being mixed with 

 a fertile kind of earth, begins again to carry crops as if renewed, and 

 what is naturally barren as clay, if mixed, is rendered fruitful ; — for 

 one kind mixed with another, serves in some measure in the place of 

 dung." " This suggested the idea of trenching, every fifth or sixth 

 year," says Theophrastus, "by digging as deep as the rains penetrate, 

 thus turning up the bottom mould by which the wheat-fields wcfe 

 renewed — and thus bringing up the virgin earth to take the place of 

 that which had been partially exhausted by cropping." Columella, 

 7 



