AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
51 
cent the deposit of any day since the bank 
was established. 
The deposits of foreign money for that 
day were $2,059,928! 
EXHIBITION OE U. S, AGRICULTURAL SOCIE¬ 
TY AT BOSTON. 
A LESSON TAUGHT. 
To the full reports in the Times we have 
little to add. The arrangements were on a 
larger scale than at any previous agricultu¬ 
ral gathering in this country, and no other 
exhibition has been as successful, at least in 
pecuniary results. We have not learned the 
exact amount of money received for entries 
and from visitors, but it was between $30,000 
and $40,000—enough to meet all expenses, 
and leave a handsome sum to go to the treas¬ 
ury of the Society, where it was especially 
needed. We but speak the universal senti¬ 
ment, when we say that to Col. Marshall P. 
Wilder belongs a large share of the credit of 
originating, arranging, and carrying on the 
various departments of the Exhibition, though 
his efforts were nobly seconded and aided by 
a large number of gentlemen in Boston and 
from elsewhere. 
There is one important lesson taught by 
the course pursued in getting up this Exhi¬ 
bition, which should not be lost. We refer 
to the liberal outlay of time and money ex¬ 
pended in making the arrangements as com¬ 
plete and magnificent as possible ; in the 
offer of large premiums and other induce¬ 
ments to exhibitors ; in the publicity given 
to the enterprise throughout the whole coun¬ 
try, &c., &c. “Nothing ventured—nothing 
gained,” is an adage as true as it is trite. 
Barnum, the most successful of showmen, 
understands this, and acts upon it. 
The managers of our State, County and 
Town Agricultural Societies will find it not 
only to their interest, but absolutely essen¬ 
tial to success, hereafter to keep this fact 
before them. A “one-horse” show may 
have succeeded in past times, while novel 
ty was a strong element of attraction ; but 
something more than novelty will soon be 
required to draw out a crowd at an Agricul¬ 
tural Exhibition. 
There is always a certain amount of ex¬ 
pense and labor attendant upon getting up 
any respectable show of agricultural prod¬ 
ucts. It is the amount expended over and 
above this, in extra large premiums, in supe¬ 
rior arrangements, in attractive show-bills 
and other means of publicity, that has the 
main effect in getting up a paying “ excite¬ 
ment.” 
We have in mind two County Agricultural 
Societies, located near each other, and hav¬ 
ing nearly equal facilities for a successful 
exhibition. The managers of one society 
appropriated $2,000 for expenses and pre¬ 
miums, none of which exceeded $20. Only 
$50 was appropriated to show-bills and other 
advertising. The neighboring Society, with 
only the same amount of funds on hand, ap¬ 
propriated $2,900 for the same purposes. 
They offered ten premiums of $50 each, with 
several others of $20 to $40 each, and de¬ 
voted $200 to posting magnificent show-bill 
in every public place in the County, which 
was done in the early part of the summer. 
The Exhibition was freely advertised in all 
the local papers, and in many others circu¬ 
lating within the County. The result was, 
the first Society received from visitors and 
other sources $1,870 ; while the receipts of 
the second were $3,045—the first losing 
$130, and the second clearing $745. 
MORE ABOUT MUCK. 
There is no subject, in our opinion, so 
worthy of the attention of cultivators gener¬ 
ally, and especially of those having worn out 
lands, or those not abounding in vegetable 
matters, as that of hunting up and using to 
the best advantage, the stores of vegetable 
matter abounding more or less upon nearly 
every farm. Where there are not rich de¬ 
posits of muck, there are decaying leaves, 
the washings of meadows, and other sources 
of organic food for plants. The present 
season of the year—before the frost entirely 
forbids such opperations-should be embraced 
by every one for digging, and heaping up for 
future use a full supply of these manurial 
deposits. 
In addition to our own articles from time 
to time, we shall continue to furnish selec¬ 
tions on the subject. We give below from 
the Rural New-Yorker, some hints on the 
value of muck which though not fully en¬ 
dorsed, are suggestive. That paper says: 
Some conversation recently had with a farm¬ 
er friend, on the subject of muck, set us in¬ 
to a reexamination of chemical theories as 
to its constituents, manurial value, and mode 
of action, and what we have gleaned, princi¬ 
pally from Dana’s ‘Muck Manual,’will prob¬ 
ably interest him and others. It is a sub¬ 
ject on which a great deal has been written, 
but as yet it is far from exhausted ; and the 
better it is understood the greater will be the 
importance attached to it. Those who have 
given muck a fair trial are convinced of its 
value, which is so readily evident that its 
use is extending ; for in agriculture, as in all 
else, a good example influences those who 
look upon it. So farmers are beginning to 
peer into swamps and pond-holes, and find 
there something worth looking for and using 
as an application to any soil deficient in veg- 
table matter. The very nature of muck 
shows that here it must be serviceable. 
Of what is muck composed 1 Of decayed 
vegetables-mosses, grass, leaves, and woody 
matter, pretty thoroughly decomposed.— 
“ Peat,” says Dana, “ Is the result of that 
spontaneous change in vegetable matter 
which ends in geine ”—a term which, “ in 
an agricultural sense, includes all the decom¬ 
posed organic matter in the soil. It is high¬ 
ly concentrated vegetable food—not only 
partly cooked but seasoned.” An analysis 
of specimens from ten different localities in 
Mass., by Prof. D., gave an average, in 100 
parts, of 
Soluble geine or organic matter.29.41 
Insoluble do.54.73 
Salts and Silicates.15.55 
These samples comprise probably a fair 
average of peat or swamp muck through the 
country. Dr. C. T. Jackson, from an analy¬ 
sis of twenty samples of peat from different 
localities in Rhode Island, obtained an aver¬ 
age of 72 parts of geine, or organic vegeta¬ 
ble matter, and 24 of salts and silicates, in 
100 parts, dried at 300°. Muck, even when 
allowed to drain as dry as it will, contains 
73 to 97 per cent of water. 
Weight. Soluble Insoluble Salts of Lime. 
Dung, 
9,289 
geine. 
128 
geine. 
1.248 
92 
Muck (1) 
9,210 
370 
673 
91 
do. (2) 
9,21 G 
319 
529 
81 
“ The power of producing alkaline action,” 
he adds, “ on the insoluble geine, is alone 
wanting to make peat as good as cow dung. 
Reviewing the various matters, from what¬ 
ever source derived, solid or liquid, which are 
used as manure, all possess one common 
property, that of generating ammonia. The 
conclusion then of this whole matter is this ; 
the value of all manures depends on salts, 
giene, and ammonia ; and it is directly in 
proportion to the last; it. follows that any 
substances affording these elements may be 
substituted for manure.” 
Muck, then, only needs some addition to 
make it capable of generating ammonia, to 
give it great value. Any alkali will do this, 
and ashes well answer the purpose. “ It is 
only necessary,” says Prof. Johnston, “to 
mix half-dried peat with any substance which 
undergoes rapid spontaneous decomposition 
—when it will more or less speedily become 
infected with the same tendency to decay, 
and will thus be rendered capable of minis¬ 
tering to the growth of cultivated plants.” 
Not only ashes, but any fermenting manure, 
animal or vegetable, will produce ammonia 
from the decomposition of the nitrogen 
which muck always contains. Many pro¬ 
cesses to which we can not particularly re¬ 
fer in this article, have been successfully 
employed for the conversion of muck into an 
active manure—and all depend on the prin¬ 
ciples already stated. 
Benefit is often derived from fresh dug 
muck, applied at once to the soil. In this 
case a slow decomposition takes, place, 
evolving ammonia ; and amechanical action 
also results, by which heavy soils are made 
more porous and friable, and better able to 
resist either wet or drouth, and also to receive 
benefit from atmospheric influences. The 
conclusion is evidently a safe one, that any 
one who can have much for the digging on his 
own farm, will find it for his advantage to 
apply it to almost any upland soil. Its great¬ 
est benefit is found when composted with 
other decomposing agents—for instance, 
with an alkali, or mixed with stable manure, 
or used as an absorbent of the liquid portions 
of the same, or of the gases' of animal or 
vegetable matters undergoing spontaneous 
decomposition—before its application to the 
soil. Thus treated, a thousand experiments 
have shown that a fertilizing material equal 
in value to stable manure, can be produced 
at much less cost. Surely it is a matter 
worthy of the practical and earnest attention 
of our readers, as well as of frequent discus¬ 
sion in our columns. 
He that will win the game, must look more 
upon the mark, than the money ; if he hits 
the one, he takes the other. 
