MANUKES. 169 



sphere, and may benefit the vegetation of the globe, 

 but very little of it may fall back on the farm of the 

 man who owned the manure. It will not do to esti- 

 mate this hurnt manure by the fact of its being black ; 

 for, according to that criterion, swamp muck, just as 

 it comes from the ground, would be better than the 

 richest stable manure. The truth is, hurnt manure, 

 however hlack, is worth but little — less than half cer- 

 tainly of its original value. 



317. A famous instance of burning manure recently 

 came under my observation. A gentleman who had 

 come from the city "to farm it," piled up, on the 

 south side of his barn, an immense heap of stable and 

 yard manure, and let it lie from April till November 

 — burnt down what was perhaps fifty loads to proba- 

 bly not more than twenty-five. He then, just before 

 winter, spread it on a peat meadow, the soil of which 

 was just about as black as the manure. For that soil, 

 I suppose, twenty-five bushels of ashes, to be spread 

 the next spring, would have been as good as the 

 whole, if not better. 



PIG-PEN MANURE. 



818. Mythology relates that one King Augeus had 

 stalled 30,000 cattle for many years without cleaning 

 after them. Hercules, it is said, was appointed to the 

 task of cleansing these "Augean stables." The wily 

 hero, as the story has come down to us, turned a 

 river through them, and made clean work shortly. 

 Whether the stalls travelled with the current, we are 

 8 



