210 PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 



right time to use it. By such management its value 

 might have been doubled at least. 



GREEN STABLE MANURE. 



401. But our farmer, on his new place, has to take 

 things as he finds them. All experience teaches that 

 this green manure is more valuable to compost with 

 cheaper materials than to use as it is. But he cannot 

 do everything at first as he would, nor as he will bj- 

 and-bje. He may conclude to use half of this stable 

 manure as it is, and to reserve the other half to com- 

 post during the summer. 



402. If he were to put the half to be now used into 

 a sandy soil, or a light loam even, valuable portions 

 of it would escape into the air. If he put it on the 

 surface of mow-land, there is danger that at will dry 

 up, that too much of it will evaporate, and that the 

 rest will be rather in the way of the scythe, than pro- 

 fitable to the crop. This latter mode of applying it 

 would result well if the season should be warm and 

 wet; but as this is always doubtful beforehand, the 

 application would at best be too uncertain. He should 

 rather apply it to plough-land, but to such as is clayey, 

 or at least a heavy loam, in which case its virtues will 

 be held in the soil ; and such, portions as are not ex- 

 hausted by the first crop will be retained for the use 

 of future crops. Stable manures, uncomposted, yield 

 a large amount of nutritious gases ; and there is hard- 

 ly a more important principle in agriculture, than to 

 put them into soils which have a sufficient retaining 



