196 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
remaining in the hive after being finished, grow darker, 
if honey is abundant, and enough boxes are not furnished, 
tile bees lose time for want of room. The boxes, when 
removed, should be placed so as to keep the combs per¬ 
pendicular, otlieru ise the weight of honey may crush 
them. If the bees are getting honey abundantly, the box¬ 
es may be set a foot or two from the entrance to the hive, 
for the bees to leave them — keep fiom the hot sun. If 
honey is somewhat scarce, Hie bees will take away the 
honey left in this way. In such cases, the boxes as they 
are taken off, may be put in an empty barrel or box, and 
covered with a thin cloth ; turn this over occasionally as 
the bees gather on the under side, they will easily begot 
rid of without much loss of honey. 
In districts where foul brood prevails, all old stocks 
should be thoroughly inspected. No matter whether one 
or ten years old, or whether they have swarmed or not— 
examine all—if diseased drive out while there is yet 
honey to he had. Three weeks after the first swarm, is 
the best time fir examination, as well as transferring, but 
do it at other times, ratlitr than neglect foul brood. Look 
out for the moth worm in all weak colonies. Set shallow 
dishes containing sweetened water about the hives at 
night to trap the moth Any stock or swarm, with too 
few bees to cover the combs properly, w ill be likely to be 
destroyed, or very much injured. When all the attention 
that you can give, is not likely to save the contents of 
the hive, it is best to secure what there is at once, 
rather than breed moths lo infest other hives. 
Queenless stocks can often be supplied after it is too 
late in Ihe season lo obtain cells from swarming hives, 
hy introducing a small colony (one that could not pros¬ 
per alone) with its queen. Sometimes you can not dis¬ 
pose of a colony from a diseased slock, better than to 
supply a queenless stock. Keep all colonies, young and 
old, strong, if possible; they are much less trouble, and 
safer from all their enemies. 
Scientific and Practical Talks About 
Manures.VI. 
(Continuedfrom page 167.) 
Muck, Peat, Swamp mud, and black earth, are 
terms applied to organic materials found in great¬ 
er or less quantity upon nearly every farm in the 
country. These substances are all valuable as 
fertilizers, and are eminently worthy the atten¬ 
tion of cultivators. Muck, peat, and swamp mud, 
are similar in character. They consist of par¬ 
tially decayed vegetable fiber—mosses, leaves, 
stems, and roots—mixed with more or less of soil. 
The purest peat or muck is one that contains the 
least earthy matter. Peat and muck are very 
similar; and both terms are often applied to 
the same material. The word peat usually re¬ 
fers to deposits where the vegetable fibers are 
long and cling together with considerable force, 
so that the material can be cut into blocks, like 
bay in a well compressed mow ; while the word 
muck is more particularly applied to deposits of 
vegetable matter in a state of fine division. Muck, 
when dried, can be broken or crumbled fine, but 
true peat must be cut into small pieces and rotted 
before it can be crumbled. By swamp mud, or 
black earth, is meant a mass made up of muck or 
vegetable fiber, rotted fine and mingled with a 
considerable quantity of soil. 
The surface earth in forests is usually called 
-woods mold, or simply mold. In old forests this 
is often nearly pure vegetable matter, being com¬ 
posed almost wholly of decaying leaves, but usu¬ 
ally it is in part washed into and mixed with the 
surface soil. This is also a valuable fertilizer, 
and is highly esteemed by gardeners and culti¬ 
vators of trees, plants, and flowers. It is this 
organic deposit that makes new land so fertile. 
For centuries, the trees gather from the air a 
large amount of organic matter to constitute the 
leaves, which annually fall to the ground, and 
being shaded they do not decay rapidly, but a por¬ 
tion is every year left, and partially protected 
from further decay by the new surface deposit 
nf leaves. Few farmers are aware of the amount 
of fertilizing material they could add to their cul¬ 
tivated fields by annually gathering all the leaves 
in these woodlands, and plowing them under, or 
what is better, mixing them with the manure. 
The leaves falling upon an acre of woodland, if 
gathered and composted with just manure enough 
to rot them, and then spread upon an acre of 
plowed land, would greatly enrich it, and pay a 
hundred per cent for the time and cost of gather¬ 
ing, and applying. The mold (leaves already par¬ 
tially rotted) should also be gathered. Success¬ 
ful gardeners, florists, and propagators of plants, 
who seek the best fertilizers, do not hesitate to 
gather this material and cart it many miles, to 
be mingled with loam in the preparation of a soil 
most suitable for their use. Let farmers take the 
hint, and go to their forests near at hand for fer¬ 
tilizers, instead of sending, or paying for sending 
vessels on a voyage of twenty thousand miles to 
Peru or the Pacific Islands. 
Grass sods are similar in character and value 
to muck. The other day we asked an intelligent 
neighbor to sell 11 s the privilege of cutting a lot of 
sods on an upland pasture. “No,” said he, 
“ these grass sods I find to be my cheapest source 
of manure, which is a scarce article. Whenev¬ 
er a piece of land is good enough to bear the 
operation, I take off a layer of sods and compost 
them with manure to be spread upon poorer 
fields.” We could but admire his wise fore¬ 
thought. 
But still more important are the peat and muck 
beds, which are accessible to three-fourths or 
rriore of all the farmers in the country. True 
peat is not so generally found, but deposits of 
valuable muck, or swamp mud, or at least of 
black mud or earth, are to be found on almost 
every farm. If there is not a swamp, there are 
at least low spots, where the water from higher 
ground has washed in and deposited black earth. 
These deposits may cover only a few rods, and 
be only a few inches in depth, but they will still 
supply many loads of organic material which 
should not be neglected, so long as there is a 
single field or garden plot not enriched to the 
highest state of fertility. The influence of a 
small quantity of organic material around the 
roots of a plant will be better understood when 
we come to speak, further on, of the mode of 
applying fertilizers. 
On the fertile western prairies, there is a sur¬ 
face layer of vegetable matter, varying in depth 
from a few inches to several feet. Where there 
is too much of it, the land is too light for good 
crops, and prairie lands generally are improved 
by plowing deep enough to bring up and mingle 
with tiie surface some of the compact soil under¬ 
neath. The effect may be injurious the first 
year, owing to the character of the soil, but it 
will be quite otherwise after air and frost have 
done their work upon the subsoil thus brought 
up. 
There are muck deposits in the valleys of all 
uneven localities. They abound in New-England, 
and in these alone there are fertilizing materials 
enough to enrich the whole of that region forages 
to come. The same may be said of many other 
similar localities, of moderate extent, over the 
whole continent. And these organic deposits are 
so numerous that they are usually accessible at 
small cost to those who have nothing of the kind 
on their own farms. The valleys of all rivers and 
streams which overflow their banks during part of 
the year, arc more or less supplied with organic 
matter, frequently in such excess that a portion 
of it may be removed for use on higher land. 
Let it be kept in mind, that till plants are com 
posed essentially of the same few.elements, and, 
consequently, that all materials produced hy the 
[July, 
decay of plants of any kind are the proper food of 
all other plants. So all these black earths, pro¬ 
duced by the decay of the roots, stems, arid 
leaves of grasses, etc., are valuable as fertilizers. 
Treatment of Feat, Muck, etc .—To be prepared 
for plant food, a substance must go through a 
process of decay ; that is, its elements must 
separate from each other, so as to he taken up 
in minute portions by the small roots or pores. 
The reason why peat and muck remain unde¬ 
cayed is that the presence of water shuts out the 
access of air and warmth, both of which are ne¬ 
cessary to decomposition. Further, after partial 
decay under certain circumstances, the vegetable 
fibers of peat and muck become coated with 
tannic acid, or with a species of asphaltum, or 
pitchy matter, which resists the action of the air, 
and prevents its access to the inner portions. 
The proper treatment then, is to place these 
substances where they will be exposed to air and 
warmth, and to apply an alkali (lime, potash, or 
soda) to dissolve the asphaltic coating. 
A description of our own practice the present 
year will explain our theory of the best mode of 
treating muck. Two miles distant is a low 
swampy locality, where the black peaty muck is 
from two to ten feet or more in depth. In con¬ 
nection with a neighbor, we have bought some 
of this land, at a cost of more than $100 per acre. 
The muck averages at least :5 feet deep, so that 
an acre will furnish fully 5,000 cubic yards, or 
one-horse loads, making the cost only about 2 
cents a load, if we allow the land to be worth 
nothing after the muck is removed. 
During the dry weather of July and August., a 
quantity of this muck will be dug out and removed 
to higher land. Some of the dryer portions will 
be taken to the barn yards and piled up under 
cover to be used as bedding, and to mix with the 
manure and absorb all the animal urine. AVhile 
being piled up, a small quantity of lime will be 
intermixed, so as to partially prepare it for quick 
decomposition, when composted with the manure. 
When this addition of lime is made, a much larger 
quantity can be put in the compost heap, without 
checking fermentation, and at least five loads 
of it can be added to each load of manure in the 
compost heap, and thus there will be six loads of 
jfood manure instead of one. The absorption of 
urine and the retention of all escaping gases, to¬ 
gether with the elements of the muck itself, will 
render the whole mass about as good as the ma¬ 
nure itself would be without this composting. 
Probably 31 cents per load will pay for getting 
out, carting, and liming the muck, making the cost 
only 33 cents per load for a good manure. This 
is one third the cost of the poorest yard manure, 
or street manure which is largely brought by the 
sloop load from New-York city to our vicinity. 
In most places the muck and lime can he obtain¬ 
ed more cheaply than the above figures, as we 
have allowed fur hauling it two miles. 
Another portion of the muck will be mixed with 
a larger amount of lime—enough to decompose 
it—and left to rot, ready for application directly 
to the land as needed. It might lie applied direct¬ 
ly to warm soils, without lime composting, but its 
action would be slower. 
We may add, that unleached wood ashes are 
quite as good as lime to mix with muck, where 
the ashes can lie obtained cheaply. We have no 
accurate experiments to be governed by, but we 
estimate a bushel of good ashes to be worth quite 
as much as a bushel of lime. The ashes contain less 
alkali, but the alkali is mostly potash, which by 
reason of its solubility is more thoroughly diffused 
through the muck, and acts upon the whole mass. 
When lime is used, it should ho fresh slaked, 
