MANURES. 561 



high state of advancement, to be worth $10 per year. It furnishes 

 nine hundred pounds of solid matter, and, at the price of $50 per ton, 

 for which guano is frequently sold, the urine of a cow for one year is 

 worth $20. And yet economical farmers will waste urine and buy 

 guano! The urine of a cow for a year will manure one and a quarter 

 acres of land, and is more valuable than its dung, in the ratio by bulk, 

 of seven to six; and in real value as two to one. 



Solid Animal Manures. — Of these horse dung is the ricliest and 

 the easiest to decompose. If in heaps, fermentation will sometimes 

 commence in twenty four hours; and even in midwinter, if a large pile 

 be accumulated, it will proceed with great rapidity; and, if not 

 arrested, a few weeks, under favorable circumstances, are sufficient to 

 reduce it to a small part of its original weight and value. 



The manure of sheep is rich and very active, and, next to that of 

 the horse, is the most subject to heat and decomposition. The 

 manure of cattle and swine, being of a colder nature, may be thrown 

 in with that of the horse and sheep in alternate layers. If fresh 

 manure be intermixed with straw and other absorbents (vegetables, 

 peat, turf, etc.), and constantly added, the recent coating will combine 

 with any volatile matters which fermentation develops in the lower 

 part of the mass. Frequent turning of the manures is a practice 

 attended with no benefit, but with certainty of the escape of much of 

 its valuable properties. 



Manuring with Green Crops. — This system has within a few 

 years been extensively adopted in some of the older settled portions of 

 the United States. The comparative cheapness of land and its pro- 

 ducts, the high price of labor, and the consequent expense of making 

 artificial manures, renders this at present the most economical plan 

 which can be pursued. The object of this practice is, primarily, fer- 

 tilization ; and connected with it, is the clearing of the ground from 

 noxious weeds, as in fallows, by plowing in the vegetation before the 

 seed is ripened ; and finally to loosen the soil and place it in the mel- 

 lowest condition for the crops which are to succeed. Its results have 

 been entirely successful, when steadily pursued with a due considera- 

 tion of the objects sought, and the means by which they are to be 

 accomplished. T.ands in many of our eastern States, which have been 

 worn out by improvident cultivation, and unsalable, have, by this 

 means, while renumerating their proprietors for the outlay of labor 

 and expense by their returning crops, been doubled in value. 



