18G7.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
55 
sods and leaves:—in short, whatsoever Avill de¬ 
cay, and so become a fertilizer. Tliese several 
items amount in tlie aggregate to a good deal in 
a year’s lime. And llie 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. 
And there arc many more Availing to be reclaim- 
oil by just such simple means. There arc farms, 
hoAvcver, which this Avill not regenerate, and 
these in 99 cases in 100, need bone-dust. Green 
manure and bone-dust will cure O-lOlhs of the 
ills that well drained and plowed land is-heir to. 
liimc is often a great help, and ashes still better. 
These facts are easier learned by c.\pcrimeut 
than by chemical analysis. * 
Manures—How and When Applied? 
A long established custom—a “rut” that the 
wheels of every-day practice have run in for 
years, has something Avhich entitles it to respect. 
SVe should not SAvilch otf upon a side track, or 
no tr.ack at all, just iMJcause Ave find oursch'es 
running our practice in the old ruts. These 
Avere 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 oA'cr the Avholc country, 
CA’cn on the rich prairies, AA'hcre the ideas ad¬ 
vanced from time to time by the Afjriculturist, 
have so often provoked derision, manure is 
getting to have a recognized value; CA’eryAvhere 
else it is the very life of farming. It is gratify¬ 
ing to hear a farmer say, “ Five years ago, 
do^’thc best I could, I could not make over 70 
loads of good manure, but noAV I keep double 
the stock I did then, and make 300 loads of bet¬ 
ter qualiiv.” Such a man can not leave the ac¬ 
cumulations of the whole year until April and 
May before he gels it out, but there must bo a 
system of almost const.antly getting it to the 
field, and getting it under ground. The farmer 
whose remarks Ave quote, has, on an average, 25 
ox-cart loads of manure per month to dispose of. 
For some crops, corn for instance, manure 
may be applied fresh and plowed in. For oth¬ 
ers, as flax or Avheat, such rank manure would 
be fatal to a good crop. Applied in the autumn, 
manure will generally l>ecome so incorporated 
with the soil before spring, that its rank charac¬ 
ter Avill be entirely lost, and if examined it Avill 
\)c found much of the consistency of manure 
that has lain 6 monllis or more in the yard. 
For com 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 contam the 
manure applied, especially for that crop. There 
are two ways of securing this surface enrich¬ 
ment Avliich, in the case of the small grains, 
should never consist of rank unfermented ma¬ 
nure One way is to make a compost, work it 
„ver, and when of a uniform consistency, apply 
it on the ploAved surface and harrow it in, or 
work it ill with a cultivator. The other is to 
plow in a good dres.sing of manure 
ly over the surface, turning it well under. I 
lis be done in autumn, the spring plowing and 
ll-rowing, if done aright, 
the surface, well incorporated OAilh the s 
and making usually a nice seed bed. If d h 
done in the spring, a crop of ^ 
tatoes may be raised, or on some 
small grain crop, and the manure be brought to 
r sm-Lcc for the especial benefit of a Avheat 
crop in August or September.-There arc such 
great differences in soils, exposures, and the 
general adaptation of districts to certain crops, 
that only general rules aa IU apply universally. 
“ Inquirer,” Avho omits the State from his ad¬ 
dress, says it is customary with farmers in his 
neighborhood to manure in spring, on corn stub¬ 
ble for oats, and folloAV Avith Avheat, seeding to 
clover and timothy. This to be folloAved by 
corn. Sometimes, it seems, the oats groAV rank 
and lodge, but usually the crop is good. The 
reason evidently is that sometimes they ploAV the 
manure in so deep, tha oats get but little, and 
if tlie ploAving is too shallow, they fall badly. 
"When they manure before plowhig for Avheat, 
the clover and timothy do better than Avhen the 
manuring is before plowing for oats, but the 
wheat is not materially affected. Instead of this, 
try coarse manure and plenty of it for the corn 
—none for the oats, a fine compost for the Avheat 
kept near the siirfacc. The rotation is not a 
good one, but Ave are not on that subject noAV. 
again, and 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, and more muck thrown on. If muck is 
not to be obtained easily, use sods or bogsAvhich 
have been laid up with a little ashes or lime 
until they crumble, or even good soil may be 
used AA’ith 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. 
-. ■- 
Like Produces Like—Old Mares as Mule 
Breeders. 
Dead Animals—What Becomes of Them? 
Wc do not cut horses and mules, and we eat 
only a portion of cattle, sheep, and swine. 
■Without considering the immense waste of 
offal Avhich take place in the slaughter houses 
all OA’er the country, from the little “one-horse” 
affairs of the villages, to the monster abattoirs 
of the cities, Avhere good sized brooks of blood 
flow out to be lost, think of what becomes of 
the horses, etc., the Avhole number of which in 
the United States may be estimated at 10,000,000. 
Their average age is, say 13 years, and the 
Aveight 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 AA'orse than Avasted, being left on the 
surface, or so slightly buried that it is dug up by 
dogs, and pollutes the air for miles around. Its 
vafue, where barn-yard manure is AAmrth $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, and where manure is Avorth more, 
the value is of course proportionally increased. 
The Avay to save this AAmste and economize it 
as manure, is as follows: 
Take 3 loads of diy, 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 skm 
him- remove hoofs and shin bones, if you have 
a market for them, and cut him up AVith axes and 
knives into pieces weighing 6 to 18 pounds, 
leaving the big bones uncut, but dividing the 
pi-incipal joints. Spread the pieces evenly 
sprinkle well with lime, cover 6 inches deep 
^■\ih muck and add more lime. Then cover 
with a foot or 18 inches of muck, and leave t 
Look out for dogs; they will frequently dig out 
the bones and see how many you can add to 
ihe hcTp After about 3 months of warm 
wealher,^or 6 months or more of cold weather, 
Txaminc the heap to seeif it iswell decomposed 
and as soon as it is in such a condition as no 
io be particularly offensive, work it over, adc m 
more muck, without lime. A new fermentation 
will commence, and Avhen this is over, ic ma 
nure will be fit for use. In shoveling , 
the big bones should be thrown to one side to 
blnUnto another compost heap, or into the 
^ _Tvhprp. thev will 
S-nrure heap, .here they .HI graclually 
deeav, so as to bo easily broken up .ith aslcdg 
hammer, or even mashed "'■IL' 
lakes some lime, however. 
great to piteh them out and woik them 
This law prevails in the vegetable and animal 
economy. Would that farmers ahvays 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 
AA'lieat, and other grains, we must save our best 
each year for seed. But in raising stock, in nu¬ 
merous districts in our country, less care is 
taken. Every year we sec calves raised from 
the meanest scrub and grade bulls, and coavs of 
no especially valuable qualities either for flesh 
or milk. Every jmar we see poor old broken 
down mares used to raise horses from. We do 
not suppose tliwt all diseases and infirmities are 
propagated from one generation to another, but 
many are; and Avhere 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 management and harsh usage 
will spoil the best descended colt; but a colt 
propagated from a diseased dam will bieak 
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 Agriculturist Avill 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 ignorance of their own interests. Quietly 
argue°wilh 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 mares for stock, and show the man 
that says, “the old [mare is pretty well broken 
down, I knoAV, but I can get two or three colts 
and some wmrk out of her yet,” that the col s 
which cost him $100 to $150 each to raise, if from 
a sound and fine dam, and by a superior sire 
might sell for $300 to $700 a piece, instead of 
barely bringing their cost, if even that the i^ 
ference being two or three times what he old 
mare is worth. There is one use for which w e 
commend old mares that _ cannot work, and can 
breed ani that is for raising mules. These will 
indeed, to a certain extent, inherit the impaund 
constitutions of their dams, but being prevaihng- 
ly used for so much slower work, they will be 
much less injuriously affected than 
their evil stops with them. We might pi oh . 
C[.aloamucl. more exleosive me of mnles 
tlL tve do at the Nortb, and there is a steady 
cmald for young mules for shi,>ment. Wlulc 
ciemaiKi j our best mares to this 
„.e do iu Kentuety tvilli 
STfinc kSi-breds, ye. we believe there 
a r housaucls of mares that would raise good 
n ules that it would never pay to raise colts 
Zm and that the mules would hrmg a much 
h^e’r price than horses raised from the same 
Certainly they would, if we regard the 
fact that they mayhemarketedSto Syeaiso i. 
