282 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
let me here remark that polished manners, and 
refined conversation do not destroy the manliness 
of a farmer in the least; neither do they impair his 
powers of endurance ; but rather add lustre to 
his character, and shed light and happiness all 
around—in fact I should prefer the life of the 
spendthrift or the jockey, to that of the farmer 
who has lost his mentality, who simply drudges 
without thought , for it is equally prejudicial to his 
eternal happiness, without one particle of enjoy¬ 
ment of even the things that arc. All the beauty 
and marvelousness of the Creator’s works are loci 
in the gross lethargy and impenetrable darkjiess 
that pervades the citadel of his thoughts. He 
fails “ to consider the heavens, the works of God’s 
finger the sun and the moon which he has 
ordained he rises early in the morning only to 
commence drudging, and beholds not “ the Sun as 
a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and 
rejoicing as a strong man to run a race ; ”he hails 
the revival of a faded world after agenial shower, 
with the unthankful grunt “ I guess we’ve had 
rain enough,” while the grateful thought, “ Thou 
God renewest the face of the earth,” never enters 
Ins beclouded mind—he sees after the pigs and 
the poultry and talks about his men ‘‘gwine for 
to haul out some dung,” but he never sees “ the 
birds building their nests, the springs running 
among the valleys, the grass growing for the cat¬ 
tle, and herbs for the service of man.” But let 
the springs cease to flow, and the grass and herbs 
cease to grow, then see how quick he is to per¬ 
ceive it. God himself has said, “ I will that men 
magnify my works which they behold ”—But to 
return. The poultry yard and houses were in ex¬ 
cellent order, and the latter arranged in a manner 
very conducive to the comfort of the fowls. They 
were divided into several apartments or rooms. 
A description of one will answer for all. Suppose 
the room to be 20 feet long by 10 wide. Along the 
back part is a pathway, by the side of which and 
in front are tiers of boxes for nests, with openings 
in front and small hinged doors in the rear along 
the path, through which the eggs may be gathered 
without letting the hens see you. Immediately 
over the nests and extending downwards in front, 
at an angle of about 45°, are the roosts made of 
lath about 13 inches apart, and close to which, on 
the under side, at the same angle, is a tight board 
floor, which being sprinkled with a little powder¬ 
ed lime*, serves to convey all the droppings into a 
trough below, and which with all other portions of 
the house, are thoroughly cleansed every day, and 
the rich gleanings carefully deposited in a recep¬ 
tacle provided for the purpose, to disappoint, so 
far as it goes, Johnny Bull’s holders of Peruvian 
Bonds. 
Leaving the poultry, we proceeded to the park, 
the gardens, the vineyard, the green house, tool 
house, seed room, duck and fish ponds, &c., tjc., 
all of which, though furnished and decorated with 
much taste and even splendor, served only to 
deepen our admiration lor the plain, unostentatious, 
substantial and inexpensive indispensibles of an 
old fashioned farm house. Other matters con¬ 
nected with our visit, including a most bountiful 
supper and a break-down ( going home), I will not 
now trouble you with. Hardy. 
Philadelphia, Nov 6 , 1857. 
* Lime should never be used with poultry droppings as 
it expels any ammonia formed. Plaster is far belter.—En. 
A Curiosity. —The Hight.stown Excelsior, N. 
J., of Oct. 1st, ’57, in referring to the Agricultu¬ 
rist., says: “ This is undoubtedly the cheapest 
and best agricultural periodical published. The 
man who could not get the worth of a dollar 
from a year’s perusal of it, would be a curiosity.” 
So say all. 
HOW TO DIG MUCK IN WINTER. 
This strikes most persons, as impracticable 
business. The common impression is, that most 
swamps are so wet, that the water would follow 
one faster than he could throw out the muck. But 
in a great majority of cases, where the peat or 
muek lies in swamps, that are only overflowed in 
times of heavy rains the diggingcan be carried on 
in all pleasant Winter weather, when it is suit¬ 
able for men and animals to be at work out of 
doors. Many of these swamps are in hollows, or 
are sheltered by woods and brush, so that the 
force of the keen Winter winds is broken. 
Of course, the more you can free the surface 
from water, before commencing operations the 
better. The muck swamp has generally an out¬ 
let, and by a little ditching at this spot, the water 
can frequently be drawn off from one to two feet. 
If we can make the water level two or three 
inches below the surface of the swamp, there is 
no difficulty in working the muck mine. This ar¬ 
ticle may even be procured from many spots in 
the Winter, that are inaccessible in warm weath¬ 
er. The surface is now frozen, so as to bear 
teams, and heavy loads, and we can drive direct¬ 
ly to the loading spot. The solid surface is easily 
broken with a crowbar, or cut with an old ax. The 
only enemy to contend with is the water, which 
flows into the pit from which the muck is thrown 
out, but this can easily be overcome. If the sur¬ 
face is frozen no water will come in from the top, 
and you will only have to guard against that which 
oozes in very slowly from the sides of the pit. This 
is best done by digging the muck in a series of 
narrow pits, and carting it off as fast as you dig, 
or within a few days. The accompanying dia¬ 
gram will illustrate the method of proceeding. 
OT, is the muck or peat swamp. Commence at 
one corner, or in any spot that may be accessible 
to the team. Mark off the pit a, in the form of a 
parallellogram, say eight feet wide, and of any 
length, that your laborers can finish in a half day. 
Eight feet is about the right width for depositing 
all the contents of the pit upon both sides. If, for 
any cause, you wish to throw it all upon one side, 
the pit should be only four feet wide. The length 
will have to depend upon the depth of the muck, 
the number of men employed in spading, and the 
rapidity with which the water flows in. The 
quicker you can throw it out, the less the water 
will trouble the workmen. Hence it is better to 
have three or four laborers for this kind of work, 
than one. If the muck is four feet deep, every 
four feet of the pit in length will make a cord, and 
a good workman in clear digging, ought to throw 
out twelve feet in length, or more, in a half day, 
that is three cords. In ordinary cases, when the 
pit is cleared there will not be more than four or 
five inches of water in the bottom. The water 
will often not reach its level in this pit for twenty- 
four hours or more. Of course there is a drain¬ 
age from all sides of the pit, making the surface 
drier, and the water less troublesome. 
You have now the pit. a, cleaned out with a 
b ink of muck on each side. If the muck is carted 
off as fast as thrown out, you can proceed in the 
direction of b. If it is not, you can proceed in the 
direction of e, to mark off the second pit. Care 
should be taken to leave a strong partition, at 
least eighteen inches thick, between the pit a and 
e. It is a good plan to let the muck stand long 
enough, say three or four days, for the water to 
drain out of it. It saves nearly half the expense 
of carting. We would therefore recommend that 
the work proceed on the second and third days in 
the direction of pit a. When the muck is carted 
off from the banks of the pit *, you can begin with 
the second tier of pits at b, and proceed as before. 
Care must be taken to leave the banks at the 
sides of the pits a little stronger than at the aids. 
After a short time, the water in the first, tier of 
pits will be frozen hard enough to bear, so that the 
muck from the second tier can be thrown on to 
the ice. Proceeding in this manner, you waste 
little of the land in embankments, and are not 
much troubled with water. With good water¬ 
proof boots this is really not so uncomfortable, 
as many other kinds of work done in Winter. It 
is safe and profitable, and such glorious crops as 
it makes will be a glad sight for the eyes in harvest. 
'experience with muck. 
To the. Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
Having been a reader of your paper for some 
time, and noticing the particular points and sug¬ 
gestions in it, I have acted accordingly, in a meas¬ 
ure. The great trouble with Connecticut farmers, 
is the want of manure, and although the majority 
of them have the material in abundance, they neg¬ 
lect to accumulate, and compost it, and are the 
losers thereby. The cry has been in your paper, 
muck, muck, use muck, leaves, &c , and I write 
now to give you a very brief history of my suc¬ 
cess in using this cheap and abundant compost. 
In the Summer of 1855 I had an upland lot, 
preparing for wheat or rye, and having no funds 
to spare for the purchase of guano, bone dust, &c., 
I concluded to try what could be done at home. 
With a team and man we commenced drawing 
muck from a pond, and in four days had one hun¬ 
dred loads on two acres of ground. The ground 
w as again plowed, thus mixing the muck,'and on 
the 15th of September was sown with wheat. It 
was harvested the following July, and when 
threshed and exhibited at the County Agricultural 
Fair received the premium for being the best 
wheat exhibited. The next season the plot was 
sown with oats, and such a crop was never raised 
on the old homestead, and all without any other 
manure. This season we have put eight hun¬ 
dred loads on five acres, sown to wheat and rye, 
and expect to be able to give you and the farming 
community as good a report, if not better, from 
the crops next summeY. In addition to the above, 
on the first lot, we this Summer cut, per acre, 
three tons of as good timothy hay as was ever 
housed, and up to this present writing, the feed is 
good, and cows easily fill themselves from it daily. 
Let every farmer, who can, try an acre with muck, 
and he certainly will be repaid four-fold. 
More anon, Doctor. 
West Norwalk, Ct., Nov. 4, 1857. 
A “Fast” man undertook the task of teasing an 
eccentric preacher....“ Do you believe,” he said, 
“in the story of the prodigal son and the fattened 
calf!”_“Yes,” said the preacher... .“Well, 
then, was it a male or female calf that was killed!” 
“ A female,” promptly replied the divine. 
“ How do you know that!”..“ Because, (look¬ 
ing the interrogater steadilv in he face,) I see 
that the male is alive now.” 
