166 TRAlSSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



These "nigger-heads" are about the hardest kind of things to decorn' 

 pose, and not much more likely to be by the process described than they 

 would be in their native situation 5 and they bear about the same relation 

 to muck that a stack of bog hay does to a corn crib. Such bogs, or bog 

 hay, when thoroughly decomposed, make manure, but it is of a very low 

 grade of quality. Muck is a different article from bogs called nigger- 

 lieads. The best of it is decomposed leaves and other vegetable matter of 

 swamps, which may have been a hundred or a thousand years in this con- 

 dition, sometimes almost pure vegetable matter, so much so that it burns 

 freely as peat, and sometimes it is mixed with silt, which detracts from its 

 value. Sometimes it is good manure, just as it is dug from the swamp or 

 pond, though it is generally much improved by piling, mixing with stable 

 manure or some animal substance, or decomposing by mixing in lime that 

 has been slaked with strong brine, or else allowed to lie in a heap long 

 enough to become thoroughly decomposed by the natural effect of the at- 

 mosphere. Sometimes muck, when first dug, contains so much acid or 

 iron, that it is not only inert, but positively injurious to vegetation. Then 

 it needs long exposure or lime mixed with it. I believe tl)at it is always 

 advantageous to compost muck with other manures. It is an excellent 

 absorbent for the liquids of the stable and pig-pen and slops of the house. 

 " Old Hurricane" says "he has tried muck two years without any satis- 

 factory result, but bought it and used it because others did, and because 

 that other parties with more muck than brains have done the same thing. 

 I have seen but one experiment on a large scale. A poor German near me 

 leased a fifty-acre farm, had no manure, and could not buy it at two and 

 one-half dollars per load. Ho carted muck through the fall and winter, 

 composting with lime, and putting it on his corn land. No visible good or 

 manurial benefit could be seen over other portions not so treated, and he 

 considered the expense and labor lost." 



Another person whom he calls " Judge," says " his idea is that as a fer- 

 tilizer, it is valueless; as an absorbent, it is good ; but placing it far, very 

 far in value below the estimates made in the books." In short, that muck 

 has no manurial value. 



With such statements before him it is no wonder that Mr. Donaldson 

 writes his letter of inquiry. For one, I assure him that it would take an 

 "old hurricane," strong enough to blow away all the judges in Jersey, to 

 convince me that muck has "no manurial value, except as an absorbent." 

 I know that I have found other value in something that I called muck, and 

 I believe that by its use some very badly worn out farms have been reno- 

 vated, and that a great many others mt,ight and certainly should be made 

 more productive than they now are. As to its value, that caa (mly be 

 tested by experience in each locality, as the value of almost every muck 

 bed differs from another. It is a question of experiment how far it will 

 bear hauling, or whether land can bo manured cheaper some other way. 

 But let no man give up the idea of using it until he proves that it has no 

 manurial value. 



Woman as a Farmer. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — What a woman can do, is proved b}"- what she hag 

 done. The Cincinnati Gazelle says that Mrs. Sarah Owen, Clinton county^ 



