708 



k T II E SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



eat and so carry off, or deeply bury, nearly all 

 of the ordure. Probably full three-fourths of 

 all the animal manure is thus wasted in dif- 

 ferent ways. Then, for the benefit of the small 

 remainder, there is all the labor, and greater 

 inconvenience, of the frequent moving of the 

 enclosures. So little manuring and benefit 

 have I gained from this plan of movable pens 

 on naked ground, and with so much labor and 

 inconvenience, and so much injury to the con- 

 fined cattle, (and still more if to sheep,) that 

 it was questionable whether there was any re- 

 maining balance of clear profit. Under this 

 impression, when my cattle could be kept at 

 night in a separately enclosed field, I have pre- 

 ferred, and have so ordered for several years 

 in former time, that the cattle should be there 

 left at large, rather than confine them at night 

 in a pen. In the former case, the excre- 

 ments were dropped at wide intervals and ir- 

 regularly over the field, and so left as top-dress- 

 ing, instead of being collected in the small 

 space of a pen. The loss by the eating and 

 working of beetles was the same, and very 

 great, in both cases. But the comfort and con- 

 dition of the cattle, when thus not confined, 

 are so much better, that it is more than com- 

 pensation for the irregular dispersion, and loss 

 on that score, of manure. If the progress of 

 decomposition, and loss by insect consumers, 

 were equal, in both cases, the benefit to the 

 land would certainly be greater, by the cattle 

 not being penned. Where pens are used, there 

 are no plants left alive to take up the fugitive 

 products of decomposition. But when the ex- 

 crements are dropped on a field, or pasture, 

 however closely grazed, the close adjacent 

 grass or weeds take up these gaseous or solu- 

 ble products of decomposition, and are thus 

 nourished and increased for future vegetable 

 manure. Further, the early rank growths of 

 these highly manured small spots are not pala- 

 table to animals, and so are left. In regard to 

 sheep, the reasons against penning them have 

 increased force. They are still more injured 

 than cattle by being penned at night, in 

 summer, as that is their best time for graz- 

 ing ; and when left at large, there is much less 

 loss in their excrement from wasteful decom- 

 position, none from insects, and it is much 

 more separated and diffused over the ground. 

 Acting upon these views, and notwithstanding 

 my wish and efforts to increase my quantity of 

 manure as much as can be done with profit or 

 advantage, I rarely permit my sheep to be 

 penned in summer, and never, when they can 

 be allowed to be left unconfined, without their 

 doing injury to the crops. 



But in regard to cattle, there is a better 

 course than either the use of ordinary naked 

 pens, or straw-littered pens, though perhaps 

 not 'better than the omitting to pen them. This 

 is the plan that I have pursued for the few last 

 years, and which will now be described. 



In winter and spring, at such times of very 



wet state of the earth that all tillage or manur- 

 ing operations must be suspended, the wood- 

 land is raked, and the dead leaves heaped. 

 Wooden rakes, with six or at most eight teeth, 

 are used, so that some of the most reduced 

 vegetable matter is left by hasty and imperfect 

 raking. I always avoid the use of broad hoes, 

 or any scraping off and removal of the surface 

 of the ground, which very injurious abstrac- 

 tion is usually made by farmers who use this 

 material for manure. If the leaves only are 

 removed, and say once in two years, and that 

 from land not to .be soon brought under tillage, 

 it may be doubted whether any injury is done 

 to the fertility of the raked wood-land. For 

 such land has already received (from the super- 

 abounding source of supply,) and taken up, as 

 much of vegetable manure as the constitution 

 of the soil will enable the soil to combine with, 

 retain, or use for the growing trees. If more is 

 left, in the fallen leaves, after their very slow 

 rotting on poor land, the results of their decom- 

 position will go to waste, without benefit to 

 the land or to its growth. To produce all the 

 benefit actually received, one-tenth of the crops 

 of leaves probably would serve as well as the 

 whole ; and the other nine-tenths might as 

 well be removed for manure, to wherever want- 

 ing, as to be left to rot and waste on the land 

 which produces them. 



Pine leaves are much the best, to rake, to 

 load, and to be applied to the fields. Land 

 formerly worn out under exhausting tillage, 

 and "turned out/' and now under a second 

 growth of pines entirely, is the best by far for 

 this operation. To such land, my labors of 

 this kind have been mostly confined — and 

 therefore I do not extend my statements to oak 

 growth, or other than such as is mostly if not 

 ■altogether of pine. 



However much valuing leaves for manure, 

 still they make a very poor material, and also 

 very slow to decompose. Therefore, unless 

 ordinary farm litter could not be had in quan- 

 tity sufficient for the comfortable bedding of 

 the animals, I would never use leaves for 

 winter littering of cow-pens or stables, or in 

 any case where speedy decomposition of the 

 manure is most desirable. But this quality of 

 being slow to change and decompose gives to 

 leaves, and especially pine leaves, a peculiar 

 value for the littering of stables and stock-pens 

 in summer, as there will be much less waste of 

 fertilizing parts from all the different materials 

 of the manure, and less inconvenience or injury 

 to the animals thereon confined. 



As my present practice is but a few years 

 old, and there has not been as yet sufficient op- 

 portunities for observing and' estimating re- 

 sults, I will merely describe the principal ope- 

 ration, the making of manure in summer in 

 cow-pens littered with pine leaves. 



A strong and coarse fence is put around a 

 square quarter acre. When a very wet state 

 of the land, or remaining thin snow, or hard 



