method, the management of manure can hardly be planned so 

 that the loss will be through the air, but rather will it result 

 from the downward passage of soil waters. The drainage water 

 from our fields carries fertility away, not rapidly, it is true^ but 

 appreciably, and it is the brook that wanders through our fields, 

 and not the winds that blow over them, that rob our manured 

 and unmanured fields of their fertility. With this view of the 

 case, we should so place our farm-yard manure that it shall 

 have just as much soil as possible to filter through. 



Rain falling on a -field, whether the field is level or consid- 

 erably sloping, tends first of all to enter the soilvjust as water 

 falling on a sponge is absorbed, and the filtering away of this 

 water causes it to flow along through the soil, not over its sur- 

 face. There are exceptions ; a field may be so steep that a 

 heavy rain-fall will rush down its surfoce and mechanically 

 carry away soil and manure, or the land may be so full of 

 water that rain-water does not freely filter through it, but even 

 then the surface water is bound to crowd out that already in 

 the soil ; so that the exceptions, while existing, are not to be 

 considered as of more importance than the general run of 

 cases. 



Surface manuring is the logical result of a study of the facts 

 relating to fertilizing in general, but by surface manuring I do 

 not mean that the manure should be allowed to remain on the 

 very top of the soil, but rather that it should be mixed with 

 the top two or three inches of soil, and the more intimately it 

 is mixed the better. And right here is \Nh.evQ yall surface 

 manuring derives its chief advantage. 



I have repeatedly seen as high as forty loads of coarse green 

 manure spread on the surface of an acre of land in the fall. 

 To have harrowed this quantity in so that little or no manure 

 should have been left in sight, would have been an impossi- 

 bility with any form of harrow that we now have ; and yet 

 after the fall rains, the winter snows and frosts, and the spring 

 rains had worked on that manure, an ordinary harrowing 

 would completely incorporate it into the soil : in fact, the ele- 

 ments had themselves mixed the plant food with the soil, and 

 the manure had become pulverized and as fine as compost, 

 and with none or very little of the loss that results from rotting 



