208 PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 



fore him. Permanent repairs and all great improve- 

 ments must give place for a while to the ordinary op- 

 erations of growing and securing crops. 



398. Among the first things to be done will be, to 

 put the manure on the land. Here great judgment is 

 to be exercised. We will suppose that there is a quan- 

 tity of green manure about the stable windows, con- 

 sisting almost wholly of the solid excrements of ani- 

 mals. The liquid excrements have probably run to 

 waste. Such is yet the practice on most farms. 

 Farmers have not learned that by losing the liquids 

 of the barn and yard, they lose the most valuable 

 part. We will suppose also that there is a quantity 

 of yard-manure, consisting of the excrements of ani- 

 mals ; peat, swamp mud, road-scrapings, brought to 

 the yard the fall before ; and such coarse hay, straw, 

 and stalks, as may have been trodden down the past 

 winter. If the former occupant were not a miserable 

 farmer, he will find also a quantity of partly artificial 

 manure, composed of say one-third excrements of ani- 

 mals, and two-thirds peat, swamp mud, road-scrapings, 

 &c., together with a few ashes, and a little plaster and 

 salt, now all composted together and fermented by a 

 slow process into a rich, black, carbonaceous mass, 

 quite as valuable as clear barn-yard manure. He will 

 be likely also to find a quantity of hog-manure, a few 

 loads of settlings about the sink, and a load or two of 

 night-soil. These are an important part of his capi- 

 tal, on which to work the first summer ; and if he is 

 a wise man, he will take good care to double this part 

 of "his capital for the second year. 



