374 



NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 



Aug. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 DBYINO MUCK FOR BEDDING. 



Tn the Monthly Farmer for June, page 275, 

 I notice an incjuiry by Mr. Smith, as to how 

 I dry my muck so as to prevent its freezing 

 in winter. In answer, I would say that it 

 would not freeze in the cellar where I keep it, 

 if ever so wet. I keep it in one end of the 

 basement, which has a wall on the back side 

 and end, the other side being double-boarded 

 and filled in with flax shives, and is so warm 

 that apples would seldom freeze in it. But 

 as dry muck is worth four timfis as much for 

 an absorbent as wet, of course I get it as dry 

 as possible, and I dry it in various ways as 

 seems most convenient. 



Last summer the weather was so wet that 

 I drew up a quantity and left it in a broad 

 pile at the end of the barn which has the cel- 

 lar, and near the window through which it is 

 thrown into the cellar, and as fast as the top 

 dried, threw it into the cellar, and so con- 

 tinued to do until all was thrown in. 



I get my supply from a small natural pond 

 ou my own premises, of about one-half acre 

 in extent, and from one foot to four in depth. 

 i have been at considerable expense to drain 

 this pond, to make it more convenient to get 

 out the muck. I find decayed leaves, wood 

 and bark all the way through the muck, which 

 lies on a bed of pure blue clay. The banks 

 around the pond are hard land, and my usual 

 practice is to throw the muck out on the bank 

 in piles, and in ordinary seasons it will dry 

 sufSciently to put into the cellar after haying. 

 I throw it out at any and all times when I have 

 leisure, and put it in tie cellar at any time 

 when it is dry and I can attend to it. 



I have a Black Ash swamp of about four 

 acres, in which the muck is from one foot to 

 tea feet in depth. Last year I commenced to 

 drain it. I took the muck from the ditches 

 and put it in a heap near the barn, which was 

 fortunate, as the season was such that it did 

 not dry very deep at a time. I have put in quite 

 a quantity the past week which was thrown out 

 from the pond last fall. The exceedingly dry 

 ■weather of the past month had made it like 

 powder, and it was consequently in the very 

 best condition, 



Jf I had no barn cellar I would partition off 

 a room in the stable, double-board it, and fill in 

 with some non-conductor, put in the muck and 

 cover over with straw and it would not freeze 

 very much. 



1 see that Mr. Upham indulges in occasional 

 flings at the use of muck. Now, it is seldom 

 that I notice such things, but I should like to 

 ask Mr. Upham what he understands by the 

 term muck. He calls it "meadow muck," a 

 term 1 never have used. I should infer from 

 his article in the Monthly Farmer for April, 

 that he would go into any low land meadow 

 that bad a black soil and take it for muck. 



1 have a neighbor that has a small pond on his 



place, from which, one season when it was dry, 

 he carted out a quantity of the bottom which 

 looked about the color of common clay, and 

 when left on top of the ground to dry became 

 as hard as clay. He put it on a clayey soil, 

 and of course it did no good. What I call 

 muck* is the deposit in the swamps and ponds 

 of a black color and as free from grit as 

 dough, and I suppose is composed in good 

 part of decayed vegetable matter, although I 

 am not learned enough to tell what it is com- 

 posed of. 



Notwithstanding that Mr. Upham has spoilt 

 some of his land by the use of muck, I will 

 say that if any man will take muck out of my 

 swamp or pond and compost it with one-third 

 stable manure, and put it on his land by the 

 side of the same bulk of clear stable manure, 

 and if his crops for three years are not fully 

 equal, and the fourth year greater, on the 

 composted part than on that where the clear 

 manure was used, I will pay him for all his 

 trouble, and if it spoils his land I will buy that 

 too. Understand that I am speaking of dry 

 soils, either slaty, gravelly, sandy, or any soil 

 not naturally moist or clayey. 



It is singular how some men will jump at 

 conclusions. One will apply a mixture of 

 clay and iron ore or some other substance on 

 clay land, which of course can do no good, 

 and he then comes out and says that muck is 

 of no benefit ! All kinds of fertilizers, and all 

 methods of application, sometimes fail ; but 

 it does not become the energetic, go ahead 

 farmer to give up at the first failure. I have 

 tried it for years, and I know that swamp 

 muck is a good and cheap fertilizer for me to 

 use on dry soils, and it is my opinion that 

 there is no dry soils but it will benefit if prop- 

 erly applied ; some more than others, un- 

 doubtedly, but all enough to pay its. cost, if 

 procured on the farm. B. 



Oah Hill, N. Y., June, 1870. 



MOVEMENT OF "WATES IN THE SOIL. 



If a wick be put in, a lamp containing oil, 

 the oil, by capillary action, gradually perme- 

 ates its whole length, that which is above as 

 well as that below the surface of the liquid. 

 When the lamp is set burning, the oil at the 

 flame is consumed, and as each particle disap- 

 pears, its place is supplied by a new one, until 

 the lamp is empty or the flame extinguished. 



Something quite analogous occurs in the 

 soil, by which the plant is fed. The soil is 

 at once lamp and wick, and the water of the 

 soil represents the oil. Let evaporation of 

 water from the surface of the soil or of the 

 plant take the place of the combustion of oil 

 from a wick, and the matter stands thus :— 

 Let us suppose dew or rain to have saturated 

 the ground with moisture for some depth. On 

 recurrence of a dry atmosphere with sunshine 

 and wind, the surface of the soil rapidly dries ; 

 but as each particle of water escapes (by 



