486 [Assembly 



heard, and I doubt whetlier it will be very soon, either here or 

 in Europe, easy as it may be to eflect. Earn, or farm-yard ma- 

 nure, I maintain, is not only the cheapest, but if preserved and 

 composted as stated, and applied at the right time and manner, 

 is the most efficient, for a farm of any size located remote from 

 the ocean and large cities and towns. Farmers so situated are 

 aware of this, and they would not be easily persuaded to expend 

 much or any money in purchasing special manures that they know 

 nothing about, and I am sure they could not be scolded or driven 

 into it. Farm-yard manure is made on their farms ; they under- 

 stand it ; it is near them ; no money to pay out for carriage, or 

 the article itself; it costs them some labor and time — and what 

 farming operations do not? If a farmer, on requesting advice, is 

 advised by some person in whom he can place confidence, that 

 his farm is deficient in some of its essential constituents, such as 

 lime, gypsum, bone-earth, salt, charcoal, &c. — he puts his finger 

 on the specific article, he knows it and cannot well be deceived 

 in it, procures and applies it: The best scientific and practical 

 farmers of Great Britain are becoming every day more convinced 

 than ever of the great utility of farm-yard manure, properly 

 managed. Professor Johnston, in a late lecture, in substance says, 

 that no good farmer will let his farm pass for any time without 

 a pretty liberal supply of farm-yard manure. Other manures, 

 such as are called special, are used to supply the soil and plant 

 with something that the one is deficient in, and the other, par- 

 ticularly wants for its proper growth. In such a system some 

 things will be omitted, essential, too, for the healthy condition 

 of the soil and plants as any the farmer has happened to use. 

 Whereas farm-yard manure contains a little of everything, more 

 so than any other manure ; and different kinds of plants have a 

 greater choice in selecting from such a variety the food they most 

 need. Professor Anderson, consulting chemist of the Highland 

 Scotch Agricultural Society, in a lecture delivered before the So- 

 ciety within the present year, for similar reasons as those of John- 

 ston and others of equal force, says that " farm-yard manure, after 

 all, must be the main-stay of the farmer." 



