INTRODUCTION. 11 



sod is so rotted that it can be cross-plowed before winter 

 sets in, all the better. It can not be plowed too often in 

 the fall. All stones and rubbish must be removed. 



ABOUT MANURES. 



The application of manure is no doubt a very impor- 

 tant matter, but in many cases a still more important 

 one is, how to get the manure. "We never have all we 

 could use to advantage. Unless we buy manure, we 

 must rob some other part of the farm in order to enrich 

 the garden. Mos!; farmers will be startled at this propo- 

 sition. In many cases, however, it is the true plan. A 

 farmer with a hundred acres of land could use all the 

 manure he makes on a ten-acre field devoted to garden 

 crops. He could use phosphates on the farm, and ma- 

 nure and phosphates in the garden. On the farm he 

 could enrich his land by summer-fallowing and plowing 

 under green crops. The more stock he keeps, and the 

 more grass, corn, oats, peas, mustard, rape, and millet 

 he grows and consumes on the farm, the more manure 

 he will make. In many cases he could with advantage 

 buy food to feed his stock. 



My own plan is, to rot the manure by making it into 

 heaps five feet wide and about five feet high, and of any 

 desired length. It is piled in the barn-yard as fast as it 

 is made. In the winter we draw these piles into the field 

 where the manure is to be used, and make it into other 

 piles five feet wide and five feet high, as before, being 

 careful to carry the heaps up straight and square, so that 

 the top shall be as wide as the bottom. If you do not 

 insist on this being done, the teamsters will make the 

 heap like the roof of a house, and before spring the ma- 

 nure will be frozen solid. On the other hand, if the heap 

 is carefully made, the manure will decompose and keep 

 warm, and be in splendid condition for use early in the 

 spring. 



