Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 243 



river. I paid it under strong protest, but could not help myself 

 as I am on an old slovened slave plantation, and haven't had 

 time to get things iixed yet. But I will try to be ready for it 

 anotlier year, and deny the gulf my quota of liquid manure. I have 

 lately come to this country from the east, and am pleased with the 

 <3hange. But if I had had a tolerably level farm there in a good 

 neighborhood, I should not have left it, and wouldn't now, but w^ould 

 stay and show people what could be done by saving manure, not 

 making or buying, for neither is requisite, but merely taking care 

 that what is naturally made on the place in feeding the crops does 

 Tiot get away through any of the many channels of waste. I don't 

 believe in much handling over of manure. It is not manipulation 

 that it wants, but the elements that crops are composed of, such as 

 carbon, nitrogen, potash, phosphates, &c,, which are produced by rich 

 feed, and not by manipulation. In feeding hogs or other stock with 

 grain, or other rich feed, mucli good absorbing material of some kind 

 needs to be supplied, not to make manure, for it won't do that, but to 

 absorb and hold the volatile and soluble matter, which would other- 

 wise be rapidly and largely dissipated into the air, earth and water. 

 It is extremely wasteful to keep high-fed animals. The course pur- 

 sued by me with entire success after getting awake to the subject, 

 was to keep my cattle in the barn all the time in winter, never feeding 

 a straw in the yard, but feeding in the barn twice a day with good 

 hay, and then about twice as much straw or other rough fodder as 

 they would eat, clearing tlie mangers once a day, or oftener, of all the 

 refuse to bed them with. And instead of cleaning out the stable every 

 •day, I kept covering the dry litter till it got too deep for convenience ; 

 then fork oif the dry from the top to start a new bed with, and throw 

 the wet out in a compact heap in which fermentation had been started, 

 which is not apt to run high enough in neat cattle's manure to do 

 harm, but merely keeps the pile warm enough in winter to rot the 

 straw nicely, the humus formed of which absorbs and holds the 

 ammonia developed from the urine, &c. A pile thus formed and 

 propei'l}' cared for will in spring cut with a shovel " like old cheese," 

 and still have retained all the elements of the crops that formed it, 

 and, returned to the soil whence tliey came, will restore to it all the 

 fertility those crops extracted from it in growing, except a small, 

 unavoidable waste. In the meantime the soil itself has not been idle, 

 but has been accumulating with rapidity, according to circumstances, 

 the elements of fertility, by the absorption of volatile and gaseous 



