8G 



on their part, a very considerable proportion of the produce of 

 the plantation. In this consumption, however, of hay, fodder 

 and grain, under proper management there is nothing really 

 destroyed or lost to the plantation. It is at this point the 

 great difficulty is encountered by planters, in the preparation 

 of compost manures. When the range is relied on for stock 

 raising and feeding, as is almost universally the case in the 

 planting States, the penning and shelter of stock evSry night 

 is attended with a great deal of trouble, and the food consumed 

 after the first month or so in the early spring is of such a 

 character, and procured at such toil on the part of the stock, 

 as merely to sustain animal life, and their excrements, of 

 course, almost valueless as a fertilizer at least comparatively 

 so. This fact, connected with the rude and careless means 

 usually adopted on plantations for composting and saving ma- 

 nure, furnishes the criteria upon which the opinion of the 

 planting public is based, as to the value of compost manures, 

 and the importance of its preparation in the plantation economy 

 of the country. 



In an article published in the November number of this 

 journal, extracted from a premium Essay prepared for the 

 " Maryland Agricultural Society," the position is taken that 

 compost manures are not worth the hauling. This is the result 

 of experience in Virginia. This opinion is very common all 

 over the country, and it is the effect of that state of things 

 which we have detailed above. My experience for the last 

 twelve years, has led me to a very different conclusion. An 

 alysis shows that the dung of animals the horse, cow and 

 hog well kept, abounds in the very same fertilizing elements 

 that make guano so valuable. If, then, the proper treatment 

 of stock on the plantation fit them for the greatest value as 

 teamsters, milkers and porkers, and in that condition their ex- 

 crements produce the most valuable fertilizer, how important 



