54= 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 98. 
John Johnston has just paid me another visit. 
He is in his eighty-first year, but is as much in- 
terested iu everything pertaining to farming as 
ever. He is a genuine enthusiast, and has un- 
bounded faith in underdrainiug, thorough cul- 
tivation, good stock, and rich manure. He ap- 
proved highly of my plan of managing my ma- 
nure. I have a basin in the yard gradually 
sloping to the center. I formerly threw all the 
manure into the basin and let it lie there until 
the following autumn. During the winter, be- 
ing spread over such a wide space, each layer 
of manure froze as fast as it was thrown into* 
the basin, and, consequently, little or no fermen- 
tation took place until spring. Now, instead of 
spreading it all over the basin, we commenced 
a small heap on one of the sloping sides of the 
basin ; with a horse and cart we drew to this 
heap, just as winter set iu, every bit of manure 
that could be found on the premises, and every- 
thing that would make manure. When got al- 
together it made a heap seven or eight feet wide, 
twenty feet long, and three or four feet high. 
"We then laid plank on to the heap, and every 
day, as the pig-pens, cow and horse stables were 
cleaned out, the manure was wheeled on to the 
heap and shaken out and spread about. The 
heap soon commenced to ferment, and when the 
cold weather set in, although the sides and some 
parts of the top froze a little, the inside kept 
quite warm. Little chimneys formed in the 
heap, where the heat and steam escaped. Other 
parts of the heap would be covered with a thin 
crust of frozen manure. By taking a few fork- 
fuls of the latter and placing them on the top of 
the "chimneys," they checked the escape of 
steam and had a tendency to distribute the heat 
to other parts of the heap. In this way the fer- 
mentation became more general throughout all 
the mass and not so violent at any one spot. 
" But why be at all this trouble ? " — For sev- 
eral reasons. First. It saves labor in the end. 
Two hours' work now, will save three hours' 
■work in the spring. And three hours' work in 
the spring is worth more than four hours' work 
in the winter. So that we save half the expense 
of handling the manure. 2d. When manure is 
allowed to lie scattered about over a large sur- 
face, it is liable to have much of its value washed 
out by the rain. In a compact heap of this 
kind, the rain or snow that falls on it is not 
more than the manure needs to keep it moist 
enough for fermentation. 3d. There is as much 
fascination in this fermenting heap of manure 
as there is iu having money in a savings 
bank. One is continually trying to add to it. 
Many a cart-load or wheelbarrowful of mate- 
rial will be deposited that would otherwise be 
allowed to run to waste. 4th. The manure, if 
turned over in February or March, will be in 
capital order for applying to root crops ; or if 
your hay and straw contaius weed-seeds, the 
manure will be in good condition to spread as a 
top-dressing on grass land early in the spring. 
This, I think, is better than keeping it in the 
yards all summer and then drawing it out on 
the grass land in September. You gain six 
months' or a year's time. You get a splendid 
growth of rich grass, and the red-root seeds will 
germinate next September just as well as if the 
manure was drawn out at that time. If the 
manure is drawn out early in the spring and 
spread out immediately, and then harrowed two 
or three times with Thomas's smoothing harrow, 
there is no danger of its imparting a rank flavor 
to the grass. I know from repeated trials that 
when part of a pasture i3 top-dressed, cows and 
sheep will keep it much more closely cropped 
down than the part which has not been manured. 
The idea to the contrary origiuated from not 
spreading the manure evenly. 
" But why ferment the manure at all ? Why 
not draw it out fresh from the yards ? Does fer- 
mentation increase the amount of plant-food in 
the manure ? " — No. But it renders Uie plant- 
food in the manure more immediately available. 
It makes it more soluble. We ferment manure 
for the same reason that we decompose bone- 
dust or mineral phosphates with sulphuric acid 
and convert them iuto superphosphate, or for 
the same reason that we grind our corn and 
cook the meal. These processes add nothing 
to the amount of plant-food in the bones or the 
nutriment in the corn. They only increase its 
availability. So in fermenting manure. When the 
liquid and solid excrements from well-fed ani- 
mals, with the straw necessary to absorb the 
liquid, are placed in a heap, fermentation sets in' 
and soon effects very important changes in the 
nature and composition of the materials. The in- 
soluble woody fiber of the straw is decomposed 
and converted into hmnic and ulmic acids. These 
are insoluble; and when manure consists al- 
most wholly of straw or corn-stalks there would 
be little gained by fermenting it. But when 
there is a good proportion of manure from well- 
fed animals in the heap, carbonate of ammonia 
is formed from the nitrogenous compounds in 
the manure, and this ammonia unites with the 
humic and ulmic acids and forms humate and 
ulmate of ammonia. These ammoniacal salts are 
soluble in water — as the brown color of the 
drawings of a mauure heap sufficiently indicate. 
Properly fermented manure, therefore, of good 
quality, is a much more active and immediately 
useful fertilizer than fresh, unfermented manure. 
There need be no loss of ammonia from evapo- 
ration, and the manure is far less bulky and costs 
far less labor to draw out and spread. The only 
loss that is likely to occur is from leaching, and 
this must be specially guarded against. I have 
a barrel sunk down in a hole below the heap 
and pump back the draiuings on to the heap. 
Our winter wheat is in rather a precarious 
condition. The ground was so dry that it made 
very little growth, and winter set in unusually 
early. I put a ton of dried blood on ten acres of 
my wheat. There is a poor, sandy knoll in the 
field, out of which we have taken a great many 
stones. After we were through sowing the 
manure, we went over this knoll again, and 
thus gave it a double dose. Last fall we could 
distinctly perceive, from the darker color of the 
wheat, how far this extra dressing extended. 
The whole field was of a good color, though the 
growth was very small. I dug up some of the 
plants, and think I never saw such a great 
growth of roots with so little growth of top. 
To my view this is a very favorable indication. 
Mr. Johnston says, in the fall of 1835 snow 
fell two feet deep on the 20th and 21st of Octo- 
ber. It remained until near the end of Decem- 
ber, when it thawed and all went off. On the 
8th of January a great snow-storm set in. Snow 
fell three feet deep all over the country, and re- 
mained on the ground until the middle or end 
of April. Farmers were then iu the habit of 
sowing their wheat even earlier than they do 
now. Mr. J. had been experimenting for some 
years as to the best time to sow wheat, and had 
found that from the 20th to the 25th of Septem- 
ber gave the best results. And so he had sown 
all his wheat that year at about that time. It 
had made very little growth when the snow fell 
on the 20th of October. Those farmers who 
had sown early, got a great growth in the fall, 
and the result was that it was smothered by the 
snow. Wheat was a general failure. Many 
farmers did not get their seed. Wheat had to 
be imported from England. Mr. Johnston had 
a good crop, averaging 36 bushels per acre. The 
next fall, while attending an auction sale in the 
neighborhood, a miller from Waterloo saw him 
in the crowd, and called out to him : " Scotch, 
Scotch ! have you sold your wheat ? " " No." 
" Have you thrashed ? " " Yes." " How many 
bushels have you?" "I have about 1800 to 
sell." " What do you ask for it?" " They tell 
me," replied Mr. J., " that it is going to be worth 
$2 per bushel. I will take that for it." With- 
out speaking a word, the miller put his hand in 
his overcoat pocket and drew out a great roll of 
bills. " There," said he, " is a thousand dollars 
to bind the bargain." " It gaye me," said Mr. 
Johnston, as he told the story, " it gave me a 
great lift, I can tell you." 
A farmer in Virginia wants to know about 
our " Dog Law," and how it works. The Deacon, 
who is a "squire" as well as a deacon, says, the 
law in this county allows any person to keep 
one dog on the payment of 50 cents a year ; if 
he keeps more than one, he has to pay $1 for 
the second dog ; for a female he must pay $3 a 
year. The money so raised is kept as a fund 
from which to pay for sheep killed or injured 
by dogs. In this county the fund is increasing, 
the tax bringing in more money than the loss of 
sheep calls for. But if the dogs should attack 
a flock of thorough-bred sheep, it is not improb- 
able that the fund might be used up in a single 
night. The law is a good one — the only difficulty 
is to get it enforced, and that depends a good deal 
on the vigilance of the neighborhood. Iu some 
other States, judging from a letter I have just re- 
ceived from Texas, the law might need to include 
other animals besides sheep. I sent two pair of 
choice thorough-bred pigs to Dr. Stiles and B. 
R. Townsend, of Austin, Texas. Mr. Townsend 
writes me that the pigs got there safe aud they 
were much pleased with them ; " but last even- 
ing, before midnight, one of the pigs was killed 
by a dog. It is needless to say," he adds, "that 
in common parlance I ' went for that dog.' " 
A Maryland farmer writes me that he is tired 
of sending his grain to a mill and paying one 
seventh for grinding. He wants to get a cheap 
mill, that can be run by one horse. I presume 
there are such mills, but I do not happen to 
know of one. The only one I have is the "Peo- 
ple's Mill," which consists of a number of vertical 
cast-iron plates. It grinds rapidly and well, 
but chokes so easily as to be practically useless. 
I think that if a farmer is within five or six miles 
of a mill, he can get his grain ground cheaper 
than he can grind it himself. It is not well 
for a farmer to try to do everything himself. 
Col. Weld writes me in regard to an Essex 
boar, recently imported. He is about 18 months 
old. " Measures 4 ft. 10 in. from snout to root 
of tail, measured over the back. From sn»ut 
to between the ears, eight to nine inches. It is 
rather an indefinite spot to stop at. The ears 
are about five inches long. I wish you would 
measure some of yours, aud give me a chance 
to compare measurements." 
I have just measured and weighed some of 
my pigs, with the following result : 
"Gen. Grant," 1G months old; whole length 
from snout to root of tail, 5 ft. 1 in. ; girth, just 
