Cultivation of Sorghum. ' 39 



MANURES. 



The word manure originally signified laboring with the land, and to the farmer 

 should still retain some of the old meaning, as incorporating the enriching elements 

 with the soil is exceedingly necessary. 



However numerous and different may be the materials which assist the growth of 

 plants, judging them by their origin, character, and names, they only consist of about 

 a dozen varieties of matter. 



These are carbonic acid, water, ammonia, sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, potash 

 and soda, silica, oxide of iron, chlorine, lime and magnesia. These are the elements of 

 vegetable nutrition, or the essential plant-food. In a fertile soil all these materials are 

 accessible to the plant, and if one of them be absent the soil is barren, and if a substan ce 

 that combines the missing article be applied to the soil it will be rendered fertile. 



Soils are often unfertile from other causes, such as the absence of water to dissolve 

 the food of the plants, or because the stores of the plant-food are locked up in insoluble 

 forms. Lime and the products of vegetable matters often fertilize merely by their 

 solvent action on the soil. Gypsum or plaster also acts as an absorber of ammonia. 



Lime, marl and muck are also often applied merely for the purpose of rendering 

 the soil lighter, warmer, more or less retentive of moisture, etc., apart from any food 

 they may furnish to the plant. Thij^jnanures are valuable as agents to assist the plant 

 in obtaining its food — as impo^-^^^^^ca qualification as that of being food for it. 



For this reason, also, one "fertilizing agent has no absolute and invariable superiority 

 over another, as all are equally indispensable, and the superiority that a special compo- 

 sition may be said to possess depends upon the soil to be recruited. In some districts 

 lime is esteemed most highly as a manure, and, on a clay soil, it may, 1st, mechanically 

 destroy the coherence and tenacity of the clay; 2nd, chemically decompose the clay, 

 making potash, ammonia, etc., soluble; and 3rd, it may be directly absorbed by the 

 plant. In other places plaster (sulphuric acid and lime) is chiefly depended on; in 

 other districts superphosphate of lime, etc. ; consequently, the intelligent farmer should 

 know what element is most required in his soil to make it productive. 



No one manure contains every fertilizing element; and lime, plaster, salt, etc., 

 which contain but few ingredients, can not in general be depended on for continu- 

 ously feeding the soil or maintaining its fertility. 



The more ingredients any manure contains or can supply to vegetation the more 

 useful it is, and there is none so universally valuable, or contains so many of the ele- 

 ments of plant-food, as stable manure. Swamp muck, straw, and vegetable refuse, 

 however, are of a very similar character and should be very carefully collected and 

 preserved for the soil. To these elements, which are abundant everywhere, we wish 

 to call attention, as their value is very greatly overlooked by our farmers generally. 



Swamps and marshes are formed by depressions in the land, into which the water 

 from the higher points flows and there remains until evaporated by the atmosphere or 

 is drained off through channels either natural or artificial. 



This water carries with it, in passing to the swamp, great quantities of most ex- 

 cellent plant food, and will, unless it is returned to the land, soon exhaust it and make 

 it barren. The early part of the year is the best time to collect this rich deposit and 

 prepare it for the field ; and that the water may drain from the muck, it should then be 

 spaded up and wheeled or carted out to the soiled or higher ground, or stable-yard, a 

 process which will doubtless appear to many exceedingly laborious and one that " will 

 not pay." To this, however, we reply, that such "diggings" have yielded to some 

 parties more gold than many that have been well worked in the famous Eldorado, 

 and for this reason the muck obtained therefrom, when composted or mixed with the 

 urine and excrement of stock about the stables, makes one cart load of manure equal to 

 about three of the ordinary material. This is because it is such a powerful absorber or 

 fixer of ammonia, one of the essential elements of, plant-food. 



Probably the most economical method of using it is to compost it or mix it with 

 the stable manure, as it absorbs from the dung and urine their ammonia and they again 

 develop the inert fertilizing qualities of the muck. 



To a given quantity of stable manure two or three times as much weathered or 

 seasoned muck may be used. The manure may be either removed from the stables and 

 daily mixed with the muck by shoveling the two together, or, as some excellent farmers 

 prefer, a trench, watertight, four inches deep and eighteen or twenty inches wide, is 

 constructed in the stable floor, and every morning a quantity of muck is placed therein 

 behind each animal, so as to absorb the urine as well as the excrement, both being 

 greatly improved by their reaction on each other. The quantity of muck to be thus 

 used should be at least sufficient to absorb all the urine and moisture from the manure, 

 and when the compost is removed from the stable it should be well intermixed and 

 thrown into a compact heap, and covered with a layer of muck several inches in thick- 

 ness, in which condition it will not require any shelter if used in the spring. 



