286 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



cast and wrought iron, and weld them together on 

 an anvil, using only gentle blows. This method 

 is peculiarly aj)plicable to the manufacture of iron 

 articles which arc intended to be made red hot, and 

 are required to be impervious to fluids — as such a 

 result cannot be obtained by simple fastening. — Se- 

 lected. 



FERTILIZING MANURES. 



Professor J. J. Mapes, in a letter to the Xew York 

 Tribune, makes mention of a great meadow in New 

 Jersey, and its value as a fertilizer. lie thus treats 

 of the matter, which cannot but be instructive to all 

 friends of agriculture : — 



•'This meadow muclt may be considered as organic 

 matter not in a state of decay, and if placed iu soil 

 without fir>t inducing a chemical change, it will not 

 act as a fertilizer. As compared with well decom- 

 posed stable manure, it bears the same analogy that 

 sour-krout docs to cabbage. If sour-kroutbe buried 

 under the surface of the earth, it will remain for 

 many years unaltered, while cabbage under similar 

 treatment would be readily decomposed. If the 

 excess of acid be first removed from krout, it will 

 then decompose as readily as cabbage, and from the 

 same causes. The muck is composed of the lighter 

 particles of surfoce soils carried to its present locality 

 by the rain ; after being saturated frequently with salt 

 water, its decomposition is arrested, and under this 

 organism a style of gases peculiar to marshes takes 

 possession of its surface. These gases are continually 

 adding the carbon, which they receive from the atmos- 

 phere in the form of carbonic acid gas, to the muck, 

 as the principal result of their decay, and thus the 

 muck is found to contain large amounts of carbona- 

 ceous matters. When muck is exposed to winter 

 frosts, the ultimate fibres of the decomposed roots it 

 contains are torn asunder, and the mass is thus 

 rendered pulverulent. In this state it is fit for easy 

 decomposition. The quality of the grasses is much 

 better on meadows which have been ditched for the 

 purpose of supplying muck, and thus part of the 

 cost of procurement is paid by the improved mowings. 



"Muck may be decomposed in various ways, and 

 will always produce beneficial results when used 

 after decomposition as a manure. AVhen mixed inti- 

 mately with wood ashes, either the leached or un- 

 leached, it forms one of the best manures for fruit 

 trees ; and while the quantity of common salt it con- 

 tains is insufficient to injure the peach, it is sufficient 

 to prove highly serviceable to the plum ; while its 

 large proportion of carbonaceous matter renders it 

 capable of receiving and retaining the ammonia of 

 the atmosphere until required for the use of the 

 roots. Muck is not a protection against the peach- 

 worm, but trees, the trunks of which are surrounded 

 by it, are less liable to their attacks. Muck, when 

 mixed with ashes, readily receives moisture, and, if 

 water be in great excess, the muck will for a long 

 time prevent the land from souring, or the water 

 from becoming fetid. 



" When urine of animals is mixed with swamp 

 muck, it already undergoes decomposition, and the 

 resulting gases are retained. One tenth part of 

 stable manure, well mixed with muck, will be found 

 sufficient to cause the mass to heat readily and be- 

 come as clear manure for farm use. If muck be 

 placed under cows, oxen, &c., and covered by the 

 bedding, so that their urine will pass through the 

 bedding and combine with the muck while it con- 

 tains the animal warmth, then the muck will be 

 decomposed, and the warmth of the body of the ani- 

 mal while sleei)ing will materially assist in the de- 

 composition. The solid manures, remaining atop of 

 the bedding, should be removed each morning, and 

 mixed with new portions of muck in the preparation 



before stated for mutual decomposition. If the liquid 

 manures from stables be led by gutters to cisterns, 

 and, when cold, pumped upon muck, it will not de- 

 compose one half the quantity as when applied con- 

 taining the animal warmth. Each horse, ox, or cow, 

 will supply the means of converting one cord of 

 muck per week into manure equal to ordiiuiry barn- 

 yard manure ; while the ready pulverulent character 

 of the mass renders such compost much more easily 

 divisible during tillage. Large quantities of muck 

 may be thrown with advantage into the hog-pen ; and 

 new quantities should be added as often as any odor 

 can be perceived arising from the surface of the pen. 

 I have used large quantities of muck in these ma- 

 nures, and have found it advantageous to remove and 

 renew the muck of the stables and hogpen every ten 

 days, always placing it under manure sheds, to pre- 

 vent its exposure to useless currents of air, for evap- 

 oration, and to assist in maintaining an equable 

 temperature, to assist its decomposition. When 

 larger quantities of manures are required than can 

 be formed from these means, then new quantities of 

 muck may be decomposed by the process given in 

 the ' Working Farmer,' p. 4, under the head of 

 ' Lime as a Manure.' By use of the lime and salt 

 mixture as there described, any amount of manure 

 may readily be formed from muck. 



" Either fresh or salt muck makes a good divisor 

 for night soil, absorbing all the more fluid parts, and 

 at the same time rendering the mass, with the slight 

 addition of two bushels of plaster of Paris to the 

 cord, entirely inodorous. 



" Dead animals, if cut into small pieces, (say from 

 one to ten pounds each,) coating slightly with ashes, 

 and then burying them in muck, will convert the 

 whole muck into a most powerful manure. The 

 waste of glue factories, slaughter-houses, &c., may 

 be so treated, and every hundred pounds of animal 

 matter will convert one cord of muck into good ma- 

 nure. The spent ley of the soap-boilers, if thrown 

 upon muck, soon converts it into available manure, 

 and every ten gallons of this spent or salt ley, as it 

 is called, is fully equal in its beneficial effects upon 

 soil, after proper division with muck, to one bushel 

 of ashes. 



" Guano, hen and pigeon dung, bones after hav- 

 ing been treated with sulphuric acid, and, indeed, 

 ali the more powerful classes of manure, should be 

 divided by admixture of muck before being used 

 upon land. 



" When muck cannot readily be procured, then 

 surface earth from old woods, pure mud, head-lands, 

 &c., may be similarly used, if of a character not 

 containing sufficient carbonaceous matter and char- 

 coal dust. Some have objected to taking the sur- 

 face earth from woods, under the impression that 

 they should impoverish the soil; but if they will 

 replace half the value in lime and salt mixture in 

 the place of the surface taken, the woods will gen- 

 erally gain by the exchange. 



" When muck composts are used on sandy soils, 

 they are rendered more tenacious, and when mixed 

 with clay, this soil is rendered more valuable. In 

 my next communication, I will treat of my experi- 

 ence in the effects produced by deep subsoil plough- 

 ing. The tacts stated above, in relation to muck and 

 its compounds, are in strict accordance with the 

 results obtained in my practice, and may be depended 

 upon as correct." 



♦ 



MANURE. 



Manure is the great sinew of agriculture, as money 

 is of war ; and the making the best of every advan- 

 tage or opportunity for increasing the quantity of it, 

 is one of the most prominent traits in the character 

 of a good fanner. 



