THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



711 



land and Belgium. The elaborate methods off 

 manure-making approved in these countries, 

 even when most proper there, would be not less 

 unsuitable and unprofitable for our country, 

 under its present circumstances of cheap land 

 and products, and costly labor. 



General remarks on compost manures. 



It being my purpose in this writing to treat 

 exclusively of putrescent (or organic) manures, 

 and those of farm production, it was proper 

 that I should avoid the other great and impor- 

 tant classes of mineral manures, and of pur- 

 chased manures, whether mineral or putres- 

 cent. There is another important class, which 

 is of intermediate origin and composition, of 

 which it may be doubted whether the treat- 

 ment should be included, or not, in an essay on 

 putrescent manures. But in my case, there is 

 another and sufficient reason for omitting any 

 particular account of this subject of compost 

 manures, in my admitted want of all practical 

 experience, and even very limited personal 

 observation of the practices of others, in this 

 manner of manuring. 



The preparing of compost or mixed manures, 

 compounded of different and various ingredi- 

 ents, has long been approved and extensively 

 practiced in Europe; and latterly,- has been 

 carried on with zeal and profit in different and 

 far separated parts of the United States. The 

 most extensive practices in the Northern States, 

 (where peat is the main material,) I know of 

 only thorough published accounts. In Talbot 

 county, Maryland, and in Edgecombe county, 

 North Carolina, I have lately seen other ope- 

 rations of composting, and heard of effects, 

 which left on my mind no doubt of great im- 

 provements and profits being thereby obtained. 

 As proper, in my admitted want of practical 

 knowledge on this subject, I will offer merely 

 a few general remarks, to direct attention to a 

 practice which is almost unknown in Virginia, 

 and invite experiment — and not to presume to 

 offer instruction from a source confessedly so 

 void of information. 



There have been opposers of composting as 

 long as approving practisers. The great diffi- 

 culty and objection is the great labor of mixing 

 the different materials, with the incidental re- 

 peated handlings and transportations of the 

 manure or the heavier materials. Every merely 

 practical man would be at once impressed with 

 this difficulty ; and even some theoretical or 

 scientific writers have thus been arrayed against 

 the expediency of composting. All such ob- 

 jectors have assumed the ground that any ma- 

 nuring substance, which would be useful as a 

 material and ingredient of a compost heap, 

 would be as beneficial if applied to the land 

 separately; and by each one being applied 

 separately or alone, all the double handlings 

 and transportations, would be avoided, and 

 more than half the labors of composting saved, 

 Such were the views of Arthur Young, for- 



merly respected as one of the highest agricul- 

 tural authorities. Perhaps forty years ago, 

 the reading of this opinion in one of his works, 

 confirmed my prejudices against the system of 

 making of compost manures. It was not until 

 very lately that my personal observation, and 

 reports to mo of practical results, on the places 

 where obtained, led me to doubt the truth of 

 my long maintained grounds of objection. 

 There is no denying that practical (and many 

 merely practical) farmers who use composts 

 largely, are convinced that they profit greatly 

 thereby. One, or a few farmers, of easy faith 

 and sanguine temperament, might for a few 

 years deceive themselves in regard to the re- 

 sults and the profits of this practice. But that 

 would be impossible in regard to whole com- 

 munities, embracing farmers of every grade, 

 and acting for long time. Such has been the 

 case in Talbot, and more recently in Edge- 

 combe. The labors so directed are of enorm- 

 ous amount in both these localities; and it is 

 impossible that they could have been so long 

 persevered in, unless the operations produced 

 profitable returns, on the general average. 

 This inference as to general and usual results, 

 is not opposed to the very probable facts of 

 many particular misapplications of labor on 

 materials being of more cost than value. 



But besides this, the best proof of the profit 

 of any system of manuring, furnished in the 

 long continued practice and satisfactory re- 

 turns of the practical farmers — there are theo- 

 retical views and sound reasons for supposing 

 new values to be created, or the old much in- 

 creased, by the mere intermixture of some dif- 

 ferent substances, and the new chemical changes 

 and combinations thus favored and induced. 

 Also, (and this is a very important matter of 

 econom}^,) materials the most putrescent and 

 therefore, the most liable to waste and destruc- 

 tion, when alone, by being intermingled w r ith 

 a great mass of other inert material, may have 

 the otherwise fleeting products of decompo- 

 sition arrested, fixed, and saved for fertilizing 

 action. Again — organic matter, in some con- 

 ditions, is not liable to decomposition — or is 

 extremely slow to decompose — as peat earth, 

 marsh muck, pine and other leaves from acid 

 soils, saw-dust, used as tanner's bark, &c. Yet 

 all such matters are almost entirely organic, 

 and also putrescent under other conditions, 

 and wholly unfit for alimentary manures. 

 When such substances are mixed with much 

 smaller proportions of others the most putres- 

 cent, as flesh, of carcases, fish garbage, blood 

 from slaughtered animals, human excrements, 

 and those of fowls, rich stable manure, &c, 

 the latter act as quickening leaven to the great 

 mass, and decompose it, or render it decom- 

 posable, and at the same time, by the mass of the 

 great materials, the most putrescent are me- 

 chanically enclosed and preserved. Further — 

 if mild lime be added and diffused throughout 

 the mass, chemical action, altogether conserve- 



