128 
GREAT VALUE OF GUANO. 
mon where the contents of stables are thrown 
out without any admixture to absorb it. The 
rain never falls in more than sufficient quan¬ 
tities to afford the necessary moisture, while the 
straw always to be kept on top, is an effectual 
protection from sun and wind. Its tendency to 
promote the health and thriftiness of the animals 
must be obvious. Their stalls are always sweet 
and comfortable. Of course, this plan also saves 
the expense of building manure houses. Its su¬ 
periority to the mode of managing these matters 
commonly recommended, that is, hollowing out 
the barn yard into the form of a ditch, and 
throwing the manure into it to be washed away 
and wasted by rain, wind, and sun, will readily 
appear. Animals should not be permitted to 
run in a barn yard except in going to and from 
their places of confinement; and to prevent any 
loss from this, it should be kept constantly cov¬ 
ered with mould, leaves, straw, &c., which, once 
or twice a year may be scraped up to put on the 
heap between the layers of manure. 
There are numerous other sources from which 
materials may be drawn to augment and enrich 
these heaps, such as weeds, the scrapings of 
garden walks, the contents of privies, fowl and 
pigeon houses, rotton chips, sawdust—a capital 
thing to throw into pigsties and cow stables— 
old rags, hog’s hair, coal ashes, soap suds, dish 
water, urine from the chambers, which may be 
poured upon them daily, and last, though not 
least, corn cobs. These are sadly wasted at the 
south. Give a really good manager 10 acres 
of land, and the corn cobs that are burned, or 
thrown away upon some of our large southern 
plantations, and I verily believe, though as poor 
as poverty at the outset, he would in a few years 
become a very comfortable liver. By this plan, 
these will of course be preserved. Where corn 
is fed to hogs and horses in the ear, the cobs will 
be mixed up with the materals under foot where 
they are finally thrown ; when shelled for fam¬ 
ily use, or other purposes, they should be care¬ 
fully gathered up, and thrown upon the barn 
yard or into the hog pens. 
A person who has not tried this plan, could 
hardly conceive how large a mass of rich fertil¬ 
ising matter may thus be collected in the course 
of a year from a very few animals, and how 
greatly, if well followed up, it will add to the 
value of landed property. It is well known 
that the whole mass by lying a sufficient time, 
and at last thoroughly mixed together, will be¬ 
come nearly as valuable as so much raw stable 
manure. While a place along side of it of 
equal, perhaps far greater original value, is 
going perceptably and rapidly to ruin, the one 
on which this, or some better system is pursued, 
will be quite as rapidly improving in beauty, 
fertility, and the various means of comfortable 
living. The garden, which at first produced 
scarcely anything eatable, begins to send forth 
daily its stores of the finest vegetables ; the 
fields, which produced only sedge grass, and that 
with much ado, become loaded with yearly in¬ 
creasing crops of grain; bare, unsightly patches 
are clothed with rich verdure ; the orchard, re¬ 
newed and invigorated, teams with fruit sweet 
to the taste, healthful to the body, and delight¬ 
ful to the eye; everything looks cheerful, 
smiling, and happy. The very animals parti¬ 
cipate in the general blessing. Their glossy 
hides, their sportive motions, their indolence, and 
their ease testify their comfort, and the enjoy¬ 
ment they find in the abundance they have thus 
been made intrumental in creating around them. 
T. S. W. Mott. 
Belvoir , N, C., Feb. 18th, 1851. 
Although the above admirable article was 
written for the latitude of North Carolina, it will 
suit, with slight modification, that of every state 
in the Union. The method of managing ma¬ 
nure and muck heaps is one of the best we 
have ever seen; and what most highly recom¬ 
mends it, is, that it can be practised by the 
poorest, as well as the richest, and equally suit 
the man of a few acres or many. Those who 
have not plenty of straw or leaves from the 
woods to mix with their compost heaps, will do 
well to use plaster, charcoal dust, or sawdust. 
Plaster can always be had; and a peck of it to 
a cubic yard of compost, is quite sufficient to 
fix the ammonia and retain all the fertilising 
gases in the manure heap. 
GREAT VALUE OF GUANO. 
In proof of this, Captain Buller, of the English 
navy, lately made the following communication 
to the Royal Agricultural Society:—He in¬ 
stanced the example of a farm in his own hands, 
consisting of 80 acres of poor land, for the most 
part lately reclaimed from heath, and rented 
at 6s. per acre. For six years past, the whole 
of the grain and hay together, with about 80 tons 
a year of mangold wurtzel, carrots, or potatoes 
had been removed from this ground, and not a 
particle of any kind of manure restored or used, 
except guano and a little marl applied to the 
lightest ground, and ten loads of dung per acre, 
applied in one of the six years to three acres of 
potatoes. The white turnips have always fed 
