120 [Assembly 



I must confess that had I supposed it would have cost me $31.08 

 to manure an acre of land with muck, I would have purchased the 

 manure in preference. A farmer desirous of obtaining muck, who 

 has none on his farm, may, if he possess a small stream of running 

 water, dam it, and thus produce a marshy spot, in which acquatic 

 plants, such as rushes, mosses, &c., will immediately spring up, grow 

 to a large size and die. New shoots will grow from the roots the 

 ensuing year, and in their turn decay, thus in a few years a large 

 quantity of vegetable matter will accumulate a thick bed of valuable 

 muck. In England the lowest layers of muck are formed in water, 

 of aquatic plants, the second layer of mosses, and the top layer of 

 heath. In Terra del Fuego, the whole face of the level country is 

 overgrown by two species of plants known as the Jlstelia plumia or 

 rush, and Donatia magellmicia or Saxifrages^ which decay together 

 and form fine beds of peat. In the Falkland Islands all the herbage, 

 grass, &c., covering the whole country, decay and turn to muck. 

 Such soil, when well drained, lor^^ened and thoroughly broken up by 

 good tillage, so that the air can gain access to the dead matter, will 

 yield almost any vegetable production. The muck absorbs and re- 

 tains for the use of plants not only water, but air, adequate to the use 

 of the roots requiring the same. The vegetable substances contained 

 in it are also advantageous and necessary to the growing plants, 

 affording organic, and inorganic compounds, which minister to their 

 successful growth, and add physical constitution, chemical properties, 

 and agricultural capacity to the soil, enabling it to yield a profitable 

 crop to the husbandman. There should be in the soil, to render it 

 productive and capable of yielding large crops, at least 50 per cent of 

 organic matter, and there is frequently 70 per cent in our western 

 lands, enabling them to yield 40 bushels of wheat to the acre. 



I would not be understood to say organic matter alone, even if 

 there be 70 per cent, is sufficient to impart great fertility to a soil, as 

 there must likewise be dead inorganic matter, to sustain vegetable 

 luxuriance. Well decomposed black muck usually contains both 

 these requisites in proper proportions and likewise possesses the power 

 of absorbing rapidly, warmth from the rays of the sun. Muck per- 

 forms for the soil four distmct and very important functions : 



