1S67.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULT UR1ST. 
oo 
sods aud leaves: — in short, whatsoever will de- 
cay, and so become a fertilizer. These several 
items amount in the aggregate to a good deal in 
a year's time. And the farmer who neglects to 
save them should be ashamed to complain of 
his worn-out land. It is by economy of this 
sort that some of the poorest farms of the coun- 
try have been reclaimed and made profitable. 
Aud there are many more waiting to be reclaim- 
ed by just such simple means. There are farms, 
however, which this will not regenerate, and 
these in 99 cases in 100, need bone-dust. Green 
manure and bone-dust will cure 9-10ths of the 
ills that well drained and plowed land is heir to. 
Lime is often a great help, and ashes still better. 
These facts are easier learned by experiment 
than by chemical analysis. * 
Manures— How and When Applied? 
A long established custom — a "rut" that the 
wheels of every-day practice have run iu for 
years, has something which entitles it to respect. 
We should not switch off upon a side track, or 
no track at all, just because we find ourselves 
running our practice in the old ruts. These 
were formed probably for some good reason, 
and should be departed from only for a good 
reason. The interest in the subject of manur- 
ing land is increasing over the whole country, 
even on the rich prairies, where the ideas ad- 
vanced from time to time by the Agriculturist, 
have so often provoked derision, manure is 
getting to have a recognized value ; everywhere 
else it is the very life of farming. It is gratify- 
ing to hear a farmer say, " Five years ago, 
do the best I could, I could not make over 70 
loads of good manure, but now I keep double 
the stock I cud then, and make 300 loads of bet- 
ter quality." Such a man can not leave the ac- 
cumulations of the whole year until April and 
May before he gets it out, but there must be a 
system of almost constantly getting it to the 
field, and getting it under ground. The farmer 
whose remarks we quote, has, on an average, 25 
os-cart loads of manure per month to dispose of. 
For some crops, corn for instance, manure 
ma}" bo applied fresh and plowed in. For oth- 
ers, as flax or wheat, such rank manure would 
be fatal to a good crop. Applied in the autumn, 
manure will general!}' become so incorporated 
with the soil before spring, that its rank charac- 
ter will be entirely lost, and if examined it will 
be found much of the consistency of manure 
that has lain G mouths or more iu the yard. 
For corn and root crops, it is best to have the 
manure diffused through the soil. For wheat 
and the other cereals, the upper layer of the soil 
to the depth of say 4 inches, should contain the 
manure applied, especially for thai crop. There 
arc two ways of securing this surface enrich- 
ment, which, iu the case of the small grains, 
should never consist of rank unfermentcd ma- 
nure. One way is to make a compost, work it 
over, and when of a uniform consistency, apply 
it on the plowed surface aud harrow it in, or 
work it in with a cultivator. The other is to 
plow in a good dressing of manure spread even- 
ly over the surface, turning it well under. If 
this be done iu autumn, the spring plowing and 
harrowing, if done aright, will bring it again to 
the surface, well incorporated with the soil, 
and making usually a nice seed bed. If it be 
done in the spring, a crop of corn or early po- 
tatoes may be raised, or on some soils a summer 
small grain crop, and the manure be brought to 
the surface for the especial benefit of a wheat 
crop in August or September. There arc such 
great differences iu soils, exposures, and the 
general adaptation of districts to certain crops, 
that only general rules will apply universally. 
" Inquirer," who omits the State from his ad- 
dress, says it is customary with farmers iu his 
neighborhood to manure in spTing, on corn stub- 
ble for oats, and follow with wheat, seeding to 
clover and timothy. This to be followed by 
corn. Sometimes, it seems, the oats grow rank 
and lodge, but usually the crop is good. The 
reason evidently is that sometimes they plow the 
manure in so deep, the oats get but little, and 
if the plowing is too shallow, they fall badly. 
When they manure before plowing for wheat, 
the clover and timothy do better than when the 
manuring is before plowing for oats, but the 
wheat is not materially affected. Instead of this, 
try coarse manure ami plenty of it for the corn 
— none for the oats, a fiue compost for the wheat 
kept near the surface. The rotation is not a 
good one, but we are not on that subject now. 
■ a t !■■ C' ^g— 1 » 
Dead Animals— What Becomes of Them? 
AVe do not eat horses and mules, aud we eat 
only a portion of cattle, sheep, and swiue. 
Without considering the immense waste of 
offal which take place in the slaughter houses 
all over the country, from the little "one-horse" 
affairs of the villages, to the monster abattoirs 
of the cities, where good sized brooks of blood 
flow out to be lost, think of what becomes of 
the horses, etc., the whole number of which iu 
the United States may be estimated at 10,000,000. 
Their average age is, say 12 years, aud the 
weight of those that die, about three to the ton. 
We have then annually the immense amount of 
280,000 tons of dead horse-flesh, nine-tenths of 
which is worse than wasted, being left on the 
surface, or so slightly buried that it is dug up by 
dogs, and pollutes the air for miles around. Its 
value, where barn-yard manure is worth §1 a 
load, is not less than §10 per ton, for if properly 
managed, it will make not less than 15 loads of 
good manure, aud where manure is worth more, 
the value is of course proportionally increased. 
The way to save this waste aud economize it 
as manure, is as follows : 
Take 3 loads of dry, weathered swamp muck 
mixed with lime, iu proportion of 1 bushel of 
slaked lime to the load, as a bed — on this, kill 
the old horse, or drag the dead one. Then skin 
him; remove hoofs aud shin bones, if you have 
a market for them, aud cut him up with axes aud 
knives into pieces weighing 6 to 18 pounds, 
leaving the big bones uncut, but dividing the 
principal joints. Spread the pieces evenly, 
sprinkle well with lime, cover 6 inches deep 
with muck and add more lime. Then cover 
with a foot or 18 inches of muck, and leav'e it. 
Look out for dogs ; they will frequently dig out 
the bones, and see how many you can add to 
the heap. After about 3 months of warm 
weather, or months or more of cold weather, 
examine the heap to see if it is well decomposed, 
and as soon as it is in such a condition as not 
to be particularly offensive, work it over, adding 
more muck, without lime. A new fermentation 
will commence, aud when this is over, the ma- 
nure will be fit for use. In shoveling it out, 
the big bones should be thrown to one side, to 
be put into another compost heap, or into the 
horse-manure heap, where they will gradually 
decay, so as to be easily broken up with a sledge 
hammer, or even mashed with a shovel ; this 
takes some time, however. The labor is not 
great to pitch them out and work them over 
again, aud finally the land gets their full value. 
If at any time the odor of ammonia is perceived, 
gypsum should be sprinkled freely over the 
heap, aud more muck thrown on. If muck is 
not to be obtained easily, use sods or bogs which 
have been laid up with a little ashes or lime 
until they crumble, or even good soil may be 
used with almost equally good results. The 
manure resulting is excellent for corn, potatoes, 
or grass, and if not too strong, and if it has lain 
long enough, is good for wheat or any purpose. 
■ « W l # ll 1 fc 
Like Produces Like— Old Mares as 
Breeders. 
Mule 
This law prevails in the vegetable and animal 
economy. Would that farmers always bore this 
in mind, and practised accordingly. It seems to 
be well understood that if we would maintain 
and improve the quality of our corn and 
wheat, and other grains, we must save our best 
each year for seed. But in raising slock, in nu- 
merous districts iu our country, less care is 
taken. Ever}- year we see calves raised from 
the meanest scrub and grade bulls, and cows of 
no especially valuable qualities either for flesh 
or milk. Every year we see poor old broken 
down mares used to raise horses from. We do 
not suppose that all diseases and iufirmities are 
propagated from one generation to another, but 
many are ; and where no specific disease is entail- 
ed, general inferiority certainly descends, which 
sooner or later will breed many evils. It is no 
doubt true that bad mauagement and harsh usage 
will spoil the best descended colt ; but a colt 
propagated from a diseased dam will break 
down under work and exposure much quicker 
than one of sound and vigorous parentage. It 
is abundantly proven that the various diseases 
of the wind passages are quite likely to be prop- 
agated. Readers of the Agriculvainst will make 
note of facts like these, and practice accordingly 
in raising stock ; but there are thousands who 
do not read, and who live and work on in need- 
less ignorauce of their own interests. Quietly 
argue with such people, and prove by your own 
experience that it pays over and over again to 
use thorough-bred bulls and rams, and the best 
stallions and marcs for stock, aud show the man 
that says, " the old inare is pretty well broken 
down, I know, but I can get two or three colts 
aud some work out of her yet," that the colts 
which cost him §100 to §150 each to raise, if from 
a sound and fine dam, aud by a superior sire, 
might sell for §300 to §700 a piece, instead of 
barely bringing their cost, if even that — the dif- 
ference being two or three times what the old 
mare is worth. There is one use for which wc 
commend old mares that cannot work, aud can 
breed, aud that is for raising mules. These will 
iudeed, to a certain extent, inherit the impaired 
constitutions of their dams, but being prevailing- 
ly used for so much slower work, they will be 
much less injuriously affected than horses, while 
their evil stops with them. AVe might profita- 
bly make a much more extensive use of mules 
than we do at the North, and there is a stco 
demand for young mules for shipment. While 
we object to prostituting our best mares to this 
purpose, as they used to do in Kentucky Willi 
their line thorough-bicds, yet we believe iheie 
are thousands of mares that would raise good 
mules, that it would never pay to raise colts 
from ; and that the mules would bring a much 
higher price than horses raised from the same 
mares. Certainly they would, if wc regard the 
fact that they may be marketed 2 to 3 \ cars old. 
