1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



205 



USES OF SAWDUST. 



The inquiry has often been made, whether 

 sawdust is in any way valuable to be used on 

 the farm ? The reply has usually been, that, 

 as it is made up of portions of various plants 

 and is therefore vegetable matter, it must be 

 useful. But how it ought to be treated, and 

 under what conditions it acts the most favora- 

 bly, are points not yet fully settled. 



In its use for one purpose, we can scarcely 

 err. It forms a soft and excellent bedding for 

 stock. It is easy for cattle to rest upon, ab- 

 sorbs a large portion of the liquids, and serves 

 to keep the cattle clean, and, therefore, in a 

 healthy and thrifty condition ; and this is of 

 no small consideration. All animals thrive ac- 

 cording to the degree of health and comfort 

 which they enjoy, as well as according to the 

 amount and quality of the food given them. 

 An ox well fed, but exposed to severe cold 

 and storms, would be likely to gain only half 

 as much as he would if properly sheltered. So 

 if he were so situated as to be obliged to stand 

 all the time, he would soon become so uncom- 

 fortable as not to gain more than half as fast 

 as he would if he could lie down, when inclined 

 to do so, upon a bed of dry sawdust or litter, 



Mr. Asa G. Sheldon, of Wilmington, who 

 probably has done as much teaming on the 

 road icitli oxen as any man in New England, 

 once told us that oxen would do better to 

 travel twenty miles a day and rest upon a good 

 bed of straw or other litter, through the night, 

 than they would to go only sixteen miles, and 

 lay upon bare planks at night ! This is cer- 

 tainly awarding great efficacy to the bed, but 

 it comes fi'om good authority, and is probably 

 correct. 



Sawdust is not easily decomposed, but it is 

 an excellent absorbent for liquid manure, and 

 when well soaked with urine, ferments readily. 

 It is also excellent, as a divider, to mix with 

 night soil, wool waste, or other highly concen- 

 trated fertilizers, and when well incorporated 

 with them, forms a manure heap that may be 

 easily and pleasantly handled. It is stated by 

 chemists that "sawdust, during decomposi- 

 tion, forms certain acids, which act as excel- 

 lent fixers of ammonia, and that when well 

 mixed with dilute sulphuric acid, it is one of 

 the best materials which can be employed for 

 fixing the ammonia given off in stables." 



In speaking of sawdust used as a fertilizer, 

 one of our valuable correspondents, *'Oak 



Hill,'''' wrote us in 1859, that he thought its 

 virtue equalled, if it did not surpass, any enrich- 

 er of the soil he ever saw. He wet it and mixed 

 it freely and thoroughly with the soil, but did 

 not state from what wood it came. 



Another of our correspondents, Mr. F. J. 

 Kinney, who had used large quantities of 

 sawdust, and made numerous and careful ex- 

 periments with it, wrote us, some seven or 

 eight years ago, quite a long and minute ac- 

 count of his practice, which we condense, and 

 give as follows : — 



"I used 100 cords in nine months in this 

 way. I put the sawdust on the floors about 

 six inches thick, and as fast as it was saturated 

 with urine, shoved the cattle and hogs' bedding 

 into the manure vault, together with the ma- 

 nure, tramping it as hard as possible, and the 

 horse bedding and manure under a shed. I 

 soon found it must be turned or something else 

 done with it to keep from fire-fanging. 



"After trying various plans, I found the best 

 was to turn water on it — enough to keep it 

 moist and cool — and let it remain in as solid a 

 body as possible until I drew it out, and then 

 put it in flat heaps, two or three cords in a 

 heap, and a foot thick after it was well trod- 

 den down. 



"1 put a pair of steers into a small yard dur- 

 ing the night for two months in the fall, throw- 

 ing sawdust under them three times a week, 

 one-third of a cord at a time. This lay until 

 the spring, when four cords of number one 

 manure were taken out. 



"Solid manure must all become liquid before 

 vegetables can be benefited by it in any way, 

 and sawdust has a marvellous faculty of hold- 

 ing on to liquids and gases. 



"I never smelt a disagreeable odor around 

 our stables while using the sawdust, except 

 when it burned, and never saw any liquid 

 leaching out from under the heaps on a clayed 

 bottom, though we used water plentifully, of- 

 ten running on two barrels to a cord, at a time. 



"Used it with manure, side by side, on va- 

 rious crops and soils. Plowed it in ; used it 

 as a top dressing on plowed land and grass 

 land, and for that year there was no perceiva- 

 ble difference except on dry land, where the 

 sawdust manure was best. I ought to say saw- 

 dust and manure, for the sawdust had not 

 changed much, and was not worth one-half as 

 much as it was after it had laid over the sum- 

 mer and become decomposed. 



"I put four cords on half an acre that was 

 too stony to plow, and at the same time ten 

 bushels of oyster-shell lime under it. The hay 

 crop was doubled the first year and quadrupled 

 the second. The sawdust manure operates 

 equally as well on any other crop. 



"Wherever I have examined the roots of a 

 vegetable grown where sawdust, chip or leaves 

 and stable manure had been used, 1 found 



