No. 149.] 479 



into the muck; they laid down upon it, and the heat of their 

 bodies rendered it excellent manure in ten days. I then removed 

 that and filled the gulley as before. I removed all to sheds. 

 Let, as is customary, the urine run into a cistern, and you will 

 find it less active in the compost by as much as twelve to one. 

 My mode has another very valuable result ; The muck absorbs 

 all the unpleasant gases of the stable, which ought always to be 

 as free from them as the pure air of the pasture ; but by ventila- 

 tion be as much as possible like open air. The muck is as great 

 a deodorizer as charcoal, and saves all the ammonia to be given out 

 to vegetables, as much as they want ; and it is also in soil an 

 excellent divisor. I have found the spent lye of the soap-boilers 

 a capital article to mix with muck ; it has in it salt which is 

 necessary to destroy the grubs, and the soluble silicates so indis- 

 pensable to the formation of the external covering of stems of 

 grain, corn,"&c., for their needed strength. Salt kills weed-seeds. 

 Hog-manure without salt, makes club-footed cabbages. I use on 

 land that has none from 6 to 20 bushels of salt per acre, with 

 great benefit. Lime Is used moderately by plants as part of their 

 pabulum, and most soils contain suflicient for this purpose, but 

 larger quantities are required for the purpose of decomposing the 

 inert matter with whicli it comes in contact. Where you have 

 put large quantities of organic matter on the land there must be 

 lime added. Some say their land is tired of lime. Not so in the 

 case I have just stated. In New-Jersey, the green sand marl 

 found at one foot or more below the surface, has been put on 

 land worth ten dollars an acre, and made it worth one hundred 

 and fifty dollars. From twenty to one hundred and sixty bush- 

 els an acre are used. This marl consists in part of greenish 

 granules, containing potash. The proportion of potash in some 

 of them is fourteen per cent. This marl is so perfectly insoluble 

 in water that it is a« perfect when taken from streams of water 

 as from the earth, the copperas it contained being the only con- 

 stituent washed out of it. The county of Monmouth will be 

 enriched for a time by it, but as it tends rapidly to aid vegeta- 

 bles in taking away the organic matter, it will soon show the 

 necessity of adding that again to the soil. The same rule is 

 applicable to any other element of soil. The green crop derives 

 its carbon from the atmosphere, as demonstrate-d by their increase 



