424 



NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 



and less than the one-half of the labour to turn the heaps. If the fuel 

 be cut down to the clay in a regular manner, as should always be 

 done, or if the spread-field in summer can be turned up with the 

 plough, a considerable improvement may be made in procuring a 

 greater mass of materials, and also in exposing a larger surface to the 

 action of the atmosphere, and preparing it for future use. With such 

 materials, I have found that fermented moss-compost may not only be 

 prepared more perfectly than by the former method, but at nearly/ one- 

 half of the expense. 



In respect to the second point, the exhausted state of the dung 

 before being applied. There is nothing more common, than to take 

 dung for this sort of compost from the great mass accumulated for 

 months in the farm-yard, and never stirred, excepting for the spring or 

 fallow crops. But for this purpose, dung, supposing it to be the joint 

 produce of horses and cattle equally, should be regularly carried out, 

 and applied to the compost-heaps, once a fortnight or three weeks at the 

 least. Thus it will be applied before much disposition to fermentation 

 comes on ; after which it is plain that all animal manure becomes 

 nearly effete, and loses the greater part of its value. In order that the 

 fresh manure may be applied with the greatest effect, sufficient masses 

 or heaps of peat-moss must always be in readiness ; and should it 

 happen to be.late in the season — that is, after the month of October — it 

 will be necessary to cover them as soon as mixed up, with straw, rushes, 

 shows, or such other substance as will prevent the escape of the heat. 

 "Were a farmer or planter, who has the command of peat-moss at a 

 reasonable distance, diligently to proceed in this manner, it is no exag- 

 geration to say that he would annually double, or more probably triple, 

 the amount of his disposable manure. 



The preparing of moss-compost with lime in a proper manner, so as 

 really to decompose the peat, and preserve the qualities of the lime, is a 

 process which is not generally understood. The common way is to 

 mix, in nearly equal portions, lime newly calcined {Scot, lime-shells) 

 and peat-moss ; by which means, heat being disengaged in far too great 

 proportion, and the lime suddenly slaked by the moisture of the moss, 

 the heat becomes so violent as to reduce the peat to charcoal, to dis- 

 sipate in a gaseous state all its component parts — excepting only the 

 ashes, part of the carbonaceous matter, and the fixed air absorbed by the 

 lime. Thus the lime is rendered nearly powerless, as mentioned in the 

 text, and brought back to the state of mere chalk, instead of forming 

 such a combination with the peat, and the gas generated in the process, 

 as, on being applied to the soil, will promote the growth of plants. 

 The late ingenious Lord Dundonald, our earliest writer on agricultural 



