MANURES. 



37 



or yard, and mix with every load a bushel and a half of 

 the lime and salt mixture intimately while it is in a 

 moderately moist state, and in thirty days it will be de- 

 composed. Upon a layer of this earth six inches thick, 

 spread a coat of fresh stable manure, each day covering it 

 with ten times its quantity of prepared muck which will 

 absorb all the gases and salts. Let the pile accumulate 

 until four feet high, and then turn it all over, mix it intim- 

 ately, and cover the whole with a thick coat of prepared 

 muck. If too dry to ferment, add water, and in three 

 weeks it will be fit for use, and will be found equal to 

 common stable manure, and is entirely free from insects of 

 all kinds. In reducing composts, of all kinds, the heap 

 must be kept moist or no fermentation will be produced, 

 keeping it " always moist but never leached " is the way 

 to produce a strong compost. 



A thick layer of the muck should be kept also in the 

 hog-pens and stables to absorb the urine, removing the 

 solid manure from the latter daily, and the muck at the 

 end of each week. Upon this muck also the house slops 

 of all kinds should be poured and where charcoal is not 

 employed, a bushel every three days should be thrown 

 into the privy to destroy the offensive gases produced. 



Swamp muck may also be reduced with ashes or lime, 

 either of which will destroy all acid properties. The salt 

 and lime mixture is the best and usually the cheapest, but 

 leached ashes mixed with carbonaceous matter have an 

 additional part of their potash, rendered soluble and avail- 

 able for plants, and should be used thus where obtain- 

 able. 



Of still more value is leaf mould or the black surface 

 soil of the woods. This is free from the acid properties of 

 swamp muck, and may be applied directly to most plants 

 in the flower garden, many of which will not flourish un- 



