MAinJEES. 19 



the horses are fed on grain and hay is of most valua 

 This quality of manure, ahnost free from straw, we 

 buy at Newark, N. J., at an average of one dollar 

 and thirty-eight cents for a two-horse load. This is 

 hauled and thrown in heaps, sometimes composted 

 with tanner's refuse and woods earth, turning it over 

 two or three times before applying it. 



Market-gardeners will use from fifty to seventy 

 loads of this manure to an acre, besides a top-dress- 

 ing of five or six hundred pounds of a special fer- 

 tilizer. 



For the past four years we have contracted for 

 all the refuse from a large soap factory, and have 

 found this waste lime, potash, and fatty matter a 

 valuable top-dressing, applying it at the rate of three 

 or four tons to the acre. We have also used a com- 

 post made by decamposing muck with the salt and 

 lime mixture,* then adding to this compound an 

 equal bulk of yard-manure. At the end of six 

 months the whole mass is homogeneous, and, when 

 turned under for garden-crops, fully equal, load for 

 load, to pure horse-manure. 



Gardeners in our section use " slaughter-house " 

 manure with profitable results. This is usually com- 

 posted with other manures, and left in a pile for sev- 

 eral months before using it. It costs about one dol- 

 lar and fifty cents a two-horse load, and in quality is 

 about the same as a load of horse -manure. 



* The salt and lime mixture is made by dissolving one bushel of 

 salt in water, and then slacking three bushels of lime with the salt 

 water. This mixture should be turned over two or three times under 

 a shed ; one bushel of it will be enough for a cord of muck. 



