50 [Assembly 



to the depth of 30 inches, ^>A the stones taken out. Many of 

 the fiehls Jiave been underdrained. Perhaps no farm in the vi- 

 cinity of New-York lias been more improved within the last five 

 years tl^an this cne. Prof. Mapes moved on to this farm some 

 five years since, during vAhich lime he has thoroughly subdued 

 most of it. Many thousand loads of stone have been removed 

 from the fields and used for roads, walks, and fences. 



The method of culture has fully established the economy of 

 his management, indeed too much cannot t>e said in favor of Prof. 

 Mapes' sjstem of husbandry. 



On the subject of manures he has exhibited great skill. The 

 soil, in the first place, has been put in an exact balance for vege- 

 table productions by the addition of the missing constituents, 

 which have been ascertained by analysis in the Professor's labo- 

 ratory. Your committee have been furnished by him with a 

 statement of his method of preparing various kinds of manure. 

 The stable manure of this farm lis first mixes with a compost of 

 salt marsh muck, decomposed, with a mixture of salt and quick 

 lime ; to this is added a portion of his improved superpliosphate 

 of lime, before the manure is applied to the soil. The stables at 

 his barns are so constructed that seven half-cords of decomposed 

 salt muck are placed once in every ten days in a trough 4 feet 

 wide and 3 feet deep, passing the entire length of the stable, and 

 mmediately under the hind feet of the cattle and horses. The 

 bedding of the stables, such as straw and coarse hay, is thrown 

 over the trough, and overlays this dry and decomposed muck. 

 The urine of th^ animals, as soon as voided, passes through the 

 bedding down into the muck, before the animal heat has de- 

 d. The bedding is thus kep't at all times dry, and the foul 

 gases of the stable and urine are absorbed by the muck. When 

 the animal lays down, the heat of the body assists the chemical 

 changes going on between the muck and the urine. As often as 

 once a day the solid dung is removed from the stables and thrown 

 into a heap under an adjacent manure shed, supplied by eighteen 

 times its bulk of muck, previously reduced to powder by the 

 action of salt and lime mixed with it. Nineteen times the bulk 

 of the manure is thus formed from the solid dung alone mixed 



