1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEISIER. 



15 



having something done for them. For, certainly, 

 something ought to be done when the creatures 

 committed to man's care are shut up in stables so 

 ill-constructed and managed that they are obliged 

 to live and l)reathe in an atmosphere so foul and 

 unwholesome as to injure seriously their health 

 and constitutional vigor, and to render them much 

 more liable to the attacks of disease. Something 

 ought to be done when animals are shut up in an 

 atmosphere which no man could breathe in for 

 many whole nights in succession without an attack 

 of disease in his lungs or elsewhere. Something 

 ought to be done, too, -when ammonia — the most 

 valuable element in the farmer's manure — is tak- 

 ing to itself Avings and flying away. 



When a farmer to whom thinking is not, as it is 

 to so many, a dread and difficulty, takes these 

 things into consideration, the inquuy will naturally 

 arise — 



WlL\T OUGHT TO BE DONE TO IMPROVE OUR 



Stables in this Respect ? — In a good many 

 agricultural pubHcations, as well as in Liebig's Ag- 

 ricultural Chemistry, Stockhardt's Chemical Field 

 Lectures, Nash's Progressive Farmer, &c., he will 

 find directions similar to those in the article now 

 under notice, assuring him that sprinkling plaster 

 in his stables will absorb the escaping ammonia, 

 converting the volatile carbonate into a fixed or 

 non-volatile sulphate of that valuable fertilizing el- 

 ement, and Avill also purify and sweeten the air. 

 But doubts of this assertion cannot fail to arise in 

 his mind when he reads in the same or other chem- 

 ical authorities, that dri/ plaster camiot act upon 

 ammonia ; that it can produce the above results 

 only in a state of solution, and, fiirther, that to dis- 

 solve plaster four hundred times its own weight of 

 water must be added to it. He will see at once 

 that if it requires four hundred pounds or pints of 

 ■water to dissolve one pound of plaster, and thus 

 reduce it to a state in which alone it can act on the 

 ammonia escaping from his stables or his manure 

 heap, but a very insignificant portion indeed of the 

 plaster, wliich the authorities referred to have di- 

 rected him to sprinlde in his stables or over his 

 manure heap, can possibly accomplish anytliing to- 

 wards the desired result. These doubts will be 

 still farther strengthened when he finds, as he may, 

 in some of the best agricultural journals, both in 

 this country and in Great Britain, that others as 

 well as himself have become skeptical as to the 

 property usually ascribed to gypsum Avhen merely 

 sprinkled in the dri/ state upon the floor of a sta- 

 ble, or upon a manure heap. Several expressions 

 of such doubts or skepticism have appeared, Avith- 

 in a year or two, in the pages of the Countnj Gen- 

 tleman ; and positive denials of tliis asserted prop- 

 erty of gypsum have appeared in other journals. 

 For example, the North British Agriculturist 

 about a year ago asserted that gypsum "is found 

 in practice not to be a good fixer of ammonia in 

 stables, byres (cow-houses,) &c." Again, a very 

 good authority in matters connected with agricul- 

 tural chemistry says, in the volume of the Genesee 

 Farmer for 18u7, after stating objections to the 

 plans of fixing ammonia by the use of diluted sul- 

 phuric acid, and of a solution of copperas, that gyp- 

 svmi being cheap and easy of application, would be 

 excellent for the purpose but for this one fact, viz., 

 "Plaster, unless in solution, will not convert the 

 carbonate of ammonia into a sulphate of ammonia. 

 Scattering di"y or moist plaster on the manure 



heap, then, is of little use." How Liebig came to 

 make such a blunder is then explained, as also how 

 naturally it has happened that one writer has cop- 

 ied it after another, until now it is to be found in 

 almost every agricultural book and periodical in 

 this country. 



Now, if all these statements from respectable 

 journals in Great Britain and in this country are 

 to be received as authoritative, then chemists and 

 farmers are once more "out at sea" in regard to the 

 absorption of hartshorn or ammonia in stables and 

 manure heaps. We are sorry that it is so, as the 

 sprinkhng of a little gypsum would be so easy and 

 so cheap a method of preventing the escape and 

 loss of thousands of dollars' worth of ammonia 

 from every State in the Union. But if farmers 

 have been trusting to a delusion, it is better that 

 they should have it pointed out to them, than that 

 they should continue any longer laboring under a 

 mistake. For, when it becomes settled, established, 

 and more widely known that gypsum sprinkled as 

 usually directed, will not absorb the ammoniacal 

 effluvia of stables and manure heaps, farmers and 

 chemists will begin anew to make search for some- 

 tliing that will certainly effect this object. And it 

 is as a contribution to this reconsideration or rein- 

 vestigation of the question as to what is to be done 

 to save the ammonia and to destroy or deodorize 

 the foul air of our stables, that tliis article has been 

 written. Copperas water or a solution of copperas 

 is certainly a good deodorizer, but it is open to the 

 objection that the presence of iron in manure Avill 

 occasionally, if not always, be injurious. 



Dry muck and sawdust are the most efficient 

 absorljents of ammonia which we have tried in the 

 stable ; and we have seen the fumes of a manure 

 heap speedily arrested by sprinkling on it half an 

 ounce of strong sulphuric acid, diluted with a pail- 

 ful of water. Who will tell us of a better way ? 



More Anon. 



For the New England Farmer. 



liUCEIllSrE. 



Mr. Editor : — I was pleased to see your article 

 on Lucerne in your last number of the Farmer. I 

 think its value to our ftxrms has been overlooked. 

 That it is a very valuable plant in many localities, 

 admits not of a doubt. For soiling, I think it wiU 

 be found the most useful plant that we can use. 

 My experience with it is, however, limited. I 

 bought a farm in llhode Island, that had a few rods 

 of lucerne, mixed in with other grasses, and had 

 not a fair chance to grow to perfection. As it was, 

 it would start up much earlier than other grass, 

 and be ready for cutting, near three weeks sooner. 

 When I broke up the field, I found it almost im- 

 possible to plow through it, the roots were so 

 tough and strong. jNIost of the plants M'ould draw 

 through an eight-inch furrow, holding on so hard 

 as in many cases to cause the ploAV to sHde around 

 them. I dug up a single root in the garden, that 

 had been cultivated in a flower-bed, which weighed, 

 after laying through a hot June day, on the flag- 

 stones the south side of the barn, over twenty- 

 eight pounds. It was weighed by a neighbor, who 

 thought it would have much exceeded thirty pounds 

 previous to its being Avilted. There were several 

 hundred stalks, many of them over six feet in 

 length. The root at the crown was near six inches 



