iW-YORKER February 11, 1022 
$10 and $12 per month, nnd most of these things on the farm with our own labor? 
$10 hired men came to own farms of t heir 
own, or passed along into the ranks of As I write this I ran look out through 
"leading citizens.” the window upon the worst storm of the 
* + + + + season. The wind is hurling down from 
the North, twisting and piling the light 
Few perhaps who read this will work snow into great drifts. It comes upon 
up muck in this way. It. is easier to buy us suddenly, and makes me think of just 
fertilizer on time, hut harder to pay for such a sudden storm in the pine woods 
it in the end. The organic nitrogen down when 1 drove a supply team for a lumber 
in your swamp can he made as useful as camp, and was eaugbt by a blizzard half 
tankage or sulphate of ammonia if you way to town. The children are out in the 
care to work if. out through the chemistry storm like snowbirds. There goes little 
of the compost heap, or you coo many- Itose, burrowing through u drift. Thomas 
facture a complete fertilizer if you care and Cherry-top have harnessed Tom and 
to do so. The muck, ns we have shown, I’.roker to the sled, and are ofT to help 
is deficient in potash and phosphorus. It break out the roads. In the old days, 
is valuable chiefly for its nitrogen. The before the reign id" gasoline, we did not 
same compost, chemistry which makes hurry with this breaking. Now very few 
over the nitrogen may be utilized to pro- have horses left, and flu* roads must he 
duco a complete fertilizer. Wood ashes promptly cleared or the world must. walk, 
used in (lie compost will give it potash You ought to see Tom and Broker throw 
and acid phosphate, or ground hone will themselves into the harness and rip that 
add the needed phosphoric acid. Those sled through the drifts. Here are two 
can lie scattered on as (lie pile is made solid citizens who have no ambition to 
up, and all through the Winter the entire write poetry, hold office or shine in so 
mass will "cook” Into a dish til for the defy. All they know is work, and this 
queen of (lowers or the humble potato or is their day. for gasoline is down upon ils 
cabbage. I think we shall find that this knees begging good honest horseflesh to 
“inoculated" sulphur which has been dc- come and give it n chance. I'd like lo 
scribed in Til 10 It. N.-Y. will be used to be out in that snow-breaking myself. As 
good advantage in these composts. If big Tom pulls Broker and the load into 
you can smash up banes into small pieces that big drift by the gate I think of the 
and put them into one of these composts farmer in "Snow Bound.” He did not 
with fair quantities of inoculated sulphur Ray: "Now, young men. I think it very 
I think the bone will be turned into good desirable that you assume the garments 
fertilizer. Much the same thing might of labor and take the proper implements 
be found true of ground phosphate rock, in hand ami proceed to curve a passage 
I think it quite likely that with this through the mass of congealed aqeous 
inoculated sulphur we can produce in our vapor which presents an almost impend- 
Compost heap many of the chemical re- trable barrier between our residence and 
suits which the big factories have long the barn.” 
tieen doing for us. Wlmt do you think What he said was: 
about It? Will it pay us to attempt such a path!” a. w. c. 
for moat of the kings now left on earth. 
Let this cooking go cm through the Win¬ 
ter, and by Spring you will have a com¬ 
post richer than average stable manure, 
and in far better condition for spreading. 
Some of the old farmers in New England 
were experts in mnking these compost 
heaps. They threw in wood ashes, old 
sods, weeds, marsh hay, manure, soft 
bones -anything they could tind to work 
into the muck. In olden days these Yan¬ 
kee farmers knew much of the value of 
lime, yet they could not use much of it. 
Most of them wore far from the lime 
deposits, and transportation was poor. 
So they practiced what they called “par¬ 
ing and burning" to quite im extent. 
They knew that clay soils were rich in 
lime. They would take some heavy field 
grown up to weeds and coarse grass, 
plow it quite shallow and burn the sods. 
These sods, not over three inches thick, 
would lie cut np into small pieces during 
a very dry time, and burned in piles, 
using enough wood to start the tire, and 
letting the sods smoulder away like a 
peat fire. This was called “paring and 
burning.” An "expert” at this business 
could "pare" an acre in about 10 days in 
time of drought. The effect upon tin- soil 
was good, and the burning left great 
quantities of ashes, part of which were 
used to provide lime for a compost beau. 
During tin- Winter these farmers would 
work over the compost at least once. This 
they did by standing at one end with a 
fork and throwing the compost back be¬ 
hind them, thus making a new heap, 
which followed after them, well aired and 
crumbled. That made great fertilizer, 
but most modern farmers will say that 
it would not pay with modern labor. In 
those days hired men worked through 
every sunlit hour, and into the night, for 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The chief reason for hauling muck 
direct from the swamp to the field is to 
save labor nnd time. Of course such 
great frozen chunks cannot be as valuable 
for plant food a where the muck is 
chemically troateu in a compost heap. 
Yet when exposed tr the sun nnd air. in 
a dry place, these chunks do give slow 
results. The muck will slowly oxidize or 
decay, drop some of its acid quality, and 
slowly produce a form of nitrogen upon 
which trees nnd plants may feed. I know 
farmers who haul this muck to a shed 
or a Vacant stall ill the barn. As it 
thaws and dries they smash it up fine 
and use it in the gutters behind the horses 
and cattle. It will not make clean bed¬ 
ding, but as an absorbent it works well. 
It takes up the liquid manure, and not 
only holds il safely, but hastens its own 
decay by doing so. When put right on 
the ground and left there the tnuek 
slowly decays, gives up its nitrogen and 
darkens the color of the soil—thus en¬ 
abling it to retain bent. You must re¬ 
member that this muck never would have 
formed on the dry uplands. Tt is held 
in the swamps chiefly because the wet 
soil excludes the air. nnd thus prevents 
rapid decay. So that when we haul it 
out where the air and sun may work all 
through it, the muck will slowly break 
up and go the way designed by nature 
for all organic matters. It is always a 
question whether it will pay to haul this 
stuff out. Deposits of muck vary greatly 
in quality. It will not pay to argue that 
because soil is black it must be rich. 
That is ns bad nn error as it would be to 
assume that a bad smell indicates the 
value of fertilizer. I knew a man once 
who bought a lot of refuse because it let 
off a frightful odor. It was caused by 
sulphurated hydrogen which, while almost 
capable of driving a man out of a town¬ 
ship. has no value as a fertilizer. If you 
are to make a business of hauling out 
muck, my advice would be to have a fair 
sample of it analyzed. Then you may 
know just what you are doing. If you 
spread if freely over a field and plow it 
under, inv further udvice is to use a good 
dressing of lime and barrow in after the 
muck. 
***** 
If you want to get the most out of the 
murk’ you should run it through a com¬ 
post heap. Such a "heap” is n_ combined 
chemical laboratory and fertilizer fac¬ 
tory. Many fanners think it does not 
pay to bother with 8lieh work. That is 
a matter of opinion. To make such a 
compost heap we will haul out the muck 
as if we were to spread it right on the 
land. Select some well-drained and ex¬ 
posed place, and dump the muck in long 
narrow piles. We make them about twice 
the width of an ordinary wagon, leaving 
tlie ends sloping, so ns to drive right up 
and over the pile*. Put poles at the bot¬ 
tom of the wagon, with boards nt the 
sides, so the load can be dumped by pull¬ 
ing the poles out at one Hide. As ench 
load is dumped scatter from 40 to 50 lbs. 
of lime evenly over the muck. It you 
have it to spare, throw in for oneh five 
loads of muck several hundred pounds of 
chicken manure or half a load of horse 
manure, scattering it over the pile. Throw 
in old sods, leaves, trash of any sort that 
will decay, and keep the [die well tamped 
down. Make several of these piles—long 
and narrow. 
***** 
With lit a short time this henp of muck 
will become a fertilizer factory. The 
workmen in this factory may be invisible, 
but they never strike when reasonably 
supplied with food and lime. The manure 
will start a fermentation. It is not un¬ 
like the shavings and kindlings which we 
use to start the fire. This ferment is the 
work of bacteria which, started in the 
manure, and helped by the lime spread 
all through the sour mack, sweeten it nnd 
turn most of its nitrogen into available 
forms. You might call it. a form of cook¬ 
ing something like the way a good cook 
will take green bones and piecea of tough 
meat, [ml them with vegetables nnd cook 
them until she produces a stew—too good 
Nothing to Buy but the License 
“Nothing to buy but the license” describes the complete 
equipment of the new Superior Chevrolet. It is not necessary 
to spend a dollar more than the new low purchase price ot 
this car ($525 at Flint, Mich.) to make it complete—no 
“extras” to buy to make your car modem and capable of 
giving satisfactory service. This real economy is further 
evidenced after the purchase price through unusual mileage 
from gasoline, oil and tires, and fewer parts replacements. 
Twenty to thirty miles to the gallon of gasoline 
f.o.6 . 
"Flint, 
Ask your Chevrolet dealer to explain the new features of the Superior 
Chevrolet—or write Dept. 140 for catalog and other information. 
CHEVROLET MOTOR COMPANY 
Division of General Motors Corporation 
DETROIT, MICHIGAN 
More than 4,000 Chevrolet Dealers, Retail Stores and Service Stations in the United States and Canada 
