130 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



Fermentation would be impossible. And every 

 practical man must have noticed that in a large 

 compost heap, there are many deeply buried por- 

 tions, which are never exposed in forking, and 

 which retain their original greenness, unchanged, 

 while all the remainder of the heap is undergoing 

 the fermenting processes, and developing all its 

 fertilizing properties. Does not this furnish 

 us some hint for the proper application of man- 

 ures ? And does it not teach us that in light 

 lands it may be buried deeper, and must be in 

 order to protect it, than it is in closer, heavier, 

 clayey lands ? 



For experiments upon the application of man- 

 ures to specific crops, I shall be happy to call 

 upon those who have made them in careful farm- 

 ing. And having, as I think, suggested the gen- 

 eral principles of preparation, I will call on gen- 

 tlemen present to state their mode of application. 



JosiAH QuiNCY, Jr., of Quincy, being called 

 on, said that he presumed ho prepared more ma- 

 nure than any other man in the State. He kept 

 about 80 cows, and in the preparation of the ma- 

 nure followed the directions of Dr. Dana in his 

 Muck Manual. Dr. Dana, in his thorough inves- 

 tigation of the subject in Lowell, had found that 

 every cow produced 3^ cords of solid manure per 

 annum, and the same amount of liquid, the latter 

 being the most valuable. The speaker said that 

 mixed with double the quantity of muck, cow 

 manure made the best fertilizer known. He pre- 

 pared on this plan 100 cords per month. He had 

 a good muck bed on his farm, but from his mode 

 of preparing this, it became as dry and fine as 

 snuff, and in consequence, he had to make a dou- 

 ble trench behind his cows so that the liquid from 

 them would run freely into his barn cellar. His 

 manure, he calculated, would pay the entire ex- 

 pense of carrying on his farm, and he reckoned 

 it well worth $5 per cord. 



He top-drossed 60 or 70 acres, and as his ma- 

 nure was removed from the celliir he made com- 

 post heaps of it ; first a layer of muck, then one 

 of manure, and so on until the heap was large 

 enough, when it was covered with muck, and when 

 the frost is out of it he has it turned over. He 

 soiled all his cattle, feeding on rye, the grasses, 

 and Indian corn, and roots. He said it was thought 

 that you can never get more out of a cow than 

 you put in, but he thought differently, and spoke 

 at length of the gain in feeding cows well, as by 

 that means every product is increased in value. 

 Speaking of guano, Mr. Quincy said that the rea- 

 son of its great value was because the bird fed 

 on fish, the richest food, and all it eat goes to 

 soil. 



In his opinion, there was a trouble with us in 

 the want of a proper proportion between the value 

 of our farms and the quantity of active capital 



on them ; as, if a farm was worth $500, a man 

 should have $4500 active capital to keep on it. 

 He said the old Roman maxim, "Admire large 

 farms, but cultivate small ones," was worthy of 

 more attention. He considered his few acres of 

 muck land worth three times as much as any oth- 

 er of his farm. He closed by saying that a prin- 

 cipal difficulty about foreign manures was their 

 impurity and their expense, and he alluded to the 

 method of turning in green crops as fertilizers, 

 as practiced in New York. 



In answer to a question, he slated that his barn 

 cellar was water-tight, and that in summer he 

 pumped out the liquid, and manured from the 

 cart, and in winter he threw in muck to the cel- 

 lar, and absorbed the liquid. 



Mr. White, of Petersham, thought the farm- 

 ers in his section could not afford to go to the 

 expense the last speaker did, as they had not 

 muck or soil to draw to the barn, and he wanted 

 to know why the manure might not be mixed with 

 the soil in the field. He stated that Dr. Fisher, 

 of Fitchburg, saved all the manure on the farm ; 

 but he says he cannot afford to cart muck to in- 

 crease the manure. He said he had been trying 

 an experiment on corn, as desired by the Board 

 of Agriculture. He had used 12 cords of manure 

 to 4-5 of an acre of land, and the result had been 

 perfectly satisfactory, but he found that the portion 

 plowed in the deepest returned the poorest crop. 

 He said they applied top-dressing on their mow- 

 ing fields, and they considered soiling their cows 

 was not so profitable as grazing them, although 

 they did not get more than half the manure. 



Mr. Tyler, of Oxbridge, said he had a tight 

 barn cellai-, and he covered the floor 6 inches deep 

 with loam, using half this to compost with. He 

 kept from 6 to 8 cows and a horse in the barn, 

 and made from 10 to 16 cords of manure a year. 

 He applied this on 2 to 3 acres of land in corn, 

 harrowing in inches, and his average crop was 

 60 bushels of shelled corn (in January) to the 

 acre, and from observation of his neighbors' crops 

 he was satisfied his plan of manuring was the 

 best. He fed his cattle on cob and corn meal and 

 shorts ; he had tried cotton fieed meal, but he 

 found corn meal equally as good. His ground 

 was a deep, sandy loam. In relation to wheat, 

 he said that by preparing the ground late in the 

 fall, by plowing and harrowing level, he had found 

 he could gain two weeks in the spring''. 



Amasa Walkeu, of North Brookfield, com- 

 plimented Mr. Quincy for his efforts in bringing 

 the system to such perfection, but said that, as the 

 circumstances of farmers varied so much, but few 

 could follow oat the plan he adopts. He said he 

 should speak of artificial fertilizers, and he hoped 

 that before the Legislature adjourned a law would 

 be passed for the inspection of foreign manures, 



