MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 91 



should be instructed, too, to break up the lumps, and mix the ma- 

 nure, working it over until it is loose and fine. If there are any 

 frozen masses of manure, place them on the east or south outside, 

 and not in the middle of the heap. 



If there is any manure in the sheds, or basements, or cellars, or 

 pig-pens, clean it out, and draw it at once to the pile in the field, 

 and mix it with the manure you are drawing from the heap in 

 the yard. 



We generally draw with two teams and three wagons. We 

 have one man to fill the wagon in the yard, and two men to drive 

 and unload. When the man comes back from the field, he places 

 his empty wagon by the side of the heap in the yard, and takes 

 off the horses and puts them to the loaded wagon, and drives to 

 the heap in the field. If we have men and teams enough, we 

 draw with three teams and three wagons. In this case, we put a 

 reliable man at the heap, who helps the driver to unload, and sees 

 that the heap is built properly. The driver helps the man in the 

 yard to load up. In the former plan, we have two teams and three 

 men ; in the latter case, we have three teams and five men, and as 

 we have two men loading and unloading, instead of one, we ought 

 to draw out double the quantity of manure in a day. If the 

 weather is cold and windy, we put the blankets on the horses un- 

 der the harness, so that they will not be chilled while standing at 

 the heap in the yard or field. They will trot back lively with the 

 empty wagon or sleigh, and the work will proceed briskly, and 

 the manure be less exposed to the cold. 



" You do not," said the Doctor, " draw the manure on to the heap 

 with a cart, and dump it, as I have seen it done in England ? " 



I did so a few years ago, and might do so again if I was piling 

 manure in the spring, to be kept over summer for use in the fall. 

 The compression caused by drawing the cart over the manure, has 

 a tendency to exclude the air and thus retard fermentation. In 

 the winter there is certainly no necessity for resorting to any 

 means for checking fermentation. In the spring or summer it may 

 be well to compress the heap a little, but not more, I think, than 

 can be done by the trampling of the workman in spreading the 

 manure on the heap. 



" You do not," said the Doctor, " adopt the old-fashioned English 

 plan of keeping your manure in a basin in the barn-yard, and yet 

 I should think it has some advantages." 



