56 teJlXSJlCtioxi. 



fall. Peat or muck for the hogyard, or barnyard, should, also, be 

 taken from the swamp about six months before it is put into the 

 yards. Pond mud, though not so rich in humus as peat, or muck, is 

 a valuable fertilizer, its action being more immediate than that of 

 unfermented peat, owing to its greater proportion of salts and sili- 

 cates. 



In the winter of 1839 and '40, Mr. Whalen of Saratoga Co.,N. Y., 

 took from a pond on a creek, one thousand loads of pond muck and 

 put it on to a field of light sandy or gravelly soil, which had been 

 thoroughly exhausted by cropping, until it produced nothing but 

 sorrel and mullein. This muck was spread and ploughed in, and the 

 field planted to corn, which yielded fifty bushels to the acre. The 

 next winter, he took out seven hundred loads, and applied it to two 

 other fields with similar results. He has also taken muck from an 

 ash swamp with similar results. This mode of fertilization has caused 

 these worn-out fields to produce good crops of oats and grass, as well 

 as corn, where nothing scarcely grew before. 



Every farmer should place swamp muck or peat, — and if he cannot 

 obtain these, loam will do, — under his stable floors, to save the 

 urine, most of which otherwise will be lost. Proper economy will 

 enable many farmers that think they are very saving, to make double 

 the mannre every year that they now do. If the old maxim, " Money 

 saved is as good as money earned,'" be true, then it is equally so. 

 Manure saved is as good as manure bought. 



It was recently stated in an agricultural journal, that the United 

 States now import about two hundred thousand tons of guano annu- 

 ally, at an expense of $2,600,000, furnishing, probably, not more 

 than one farmer in a hundred thousand with this costly fertilizer. 

 To prevent this importation, as well as the necessity of the purchas- 

 ing of superphosphate and other expensive artificial fertilizers, it is 

 proposed that every family of four persons, shall, by the due exercise 

 of the virtue of cleanliness v/ithin doors and about the immediate 

 premises, make annually, or rather save what shall equal a ton of 

 guano. Thus might two hundred thousand families save by skill 

 and care, what now costs the country $2,600,000. Add to this- what 

 might be made by those who keep a cow, hog, and horse, Avith the 

 poultry-yard, and you would have what would equal another ton for 

 every family establishment. Thus might be saved, were this econ- 

 omy introduced throughout the United States, a quantity of manurial 

 substance, equal to two hundred thousand tons of guano, which, at 



