14 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
no casein which it is advisable to keep it beyond the year in which 
it has been collected. 
The common and convenient practice, is to carry it out from 
the yards where it has been collected, to the field where it is to be 
used, and there to pile it up in one or more large heaps, so that it 
may undergo the further decomposition required, before being ap¬ 
plied to the land. 
When, accordingly, after the dead of winter, as towards the end 
of December, and during hard frosts and snows, the men and work¬ 
ing cattle upon the farm cannot be otherwise employed, we may be¬ 
gin to carry out the dung to the fields where it is to be used. It is 
carried out in the carriages of the farm, into which it is lifted by 
large forks to be afterwards described. This partial carrying out 
of the dung from the yard proceeds when occasion offers, or when 
the state of the weather prevents the other labors of the farm from 
being carried on. And when the feeding cattle are finally removed 
from the houses and yards, and turned out to pasture, which, in 
the north of England, is generally by the middle of May, the whole 
remaining dung may either be carried to the fields, or remain in the 
yards till required for use. 
The dung, as it is carried out to the fields, is to be laid in 
the large heaps, which may be about four and a half feet high, 
and of such other dimensions as may be convenient. When the 
dung is placed in these heaps, it is in a state very favorable to fur¬ 
ther fermentation; for it is to be observed, that in all cases, the 
turning over of the dung, so as to give access to the air, causes an 
increase of fermentation, and this is the method adopted by farmers 
and gardeners, when they want to give a greater degree of fer¬ 
mentation to any heap. Should the dung in these large heaps not 
ferment to the degree required, they are to be turned over, and 
formed into new heaps, the upper part being placed below, and what 
was before below at the top. By this means the fermentative pro¬ 
cess will be renewed: and should this turning not be found sufficient, 
the heaps must be again turned over, so that they may' be brought 
to the degree of decomposition required. The large heaps of t his 
kind should not be placed in a very exposed situation, so as to be 
too much acted upon by the winds, and it is often a good precau¬ 
tion, and a necessary one in very warm countries, to face up the 
sides with a little earth or turf and to strew some earth upon the 
top so as to prevent the escape of decomposing matter. When it 
is wished to hasten the putrefactive process in these heaps, it is 
better that they be not compressed by the carriages going upon them 
to unload; but where there is no peculiar necessity for hastening 
the putrefactive process, the carriages and beasts of draft can go 
upon the heap without injury. When peculiar care is required, as 
when the dung has been injured by fire-fanging, or otherwise im¬ 
perfectly fermented in the yards, it should be spread over the heap 
in layers, so that one layer may undergo a slight fermentation be¬ 
fore it is compressed by that which is to be placed above it. 
Sometimes the mass may be turned over in the yards where it 
lies, and allowed to ferment before it is carried out to the fields 
for use. In this case the workmen begin at one side of the heap 
and with large forks, turn it over, laying that which was before 
uppermost underneath, so as that the whole may be reversed. If 
after this process of turning, no treading of cattle is allowed, the 
fermentation of the mass will proceed with rapidity, and then the 
whole may be led out at once from the yards to the fields for use. 
When the dung produced is very rich and well decomposed, as 
when cattle have been feeding in stalls on juicy and nutritiye food, 
it may not appear to require this turning over to fit it for use ; yet 
even in such a case it is generally beneficial that it be turned over 
at least once before being used, the effect being to ferment the 
mass not only sufficiently, but equally, and to mix its different 
parts together. It may be observed also, that when the mass of 
vegetable and animal substances is thrown into a common yard, 
some care should bo bestowed in spreading it equally, so that one 
part of the yard may not be filled with rich dung, and another 
with poor. The dung of horses, for example, is more susceptible 
of quick fermentation than that of oxen. When the stable, there¬ 
fore, opens upon a common yard, the horse dung should not be 
suffered to accumulate in a mass about the stable door, but spread 
abroad upon the heap. 
Farm-yard dung is chiefly applied to the soil, by being spread 
upon the land when in tillage, and covenc/l by the plough. The 
periods at which this is done, and the manner of doing it, will be 
afterwards pointed out. By being covered by the earth, the dung 
soon passes through its course of fermentation, and becomes de¬ 
composed and mixed with the matter of the soil. 
This valuable substance must be economized in the manner of 
applying it. The soil must be kept as rich as the means at the 
farmer’s hands will allow; but it is an error in practice to saturate 
it at one time with manures, and to withhold them at another_ 
They ought rather to be applied in limited quantity, and frequent¬ 
ly, so as to maintain a uniform or increasing fertility in the soil. 
The produce of the farm-yard will necessarily afford the chief 
part of the manure consumed upon farms which do not possess 
extraneous sources of supply. But besides the produce of the 
farm-yard, there are certain vegetable and animal substances which 
in their separate states may be applied to the manuring of land. 
An example of the application of vegetable substances, in this 
state, is where certain plants are allowed to come in flower, and 
are then ploughed down in their green state, and mixed with the 
matter of the soil. This is a practice derived from very ancient 
times, and is yet followed in Italy, and other parts of Europe. 
Vegetable matter, when thus covered by the soil in its green and 
succulent state, readily undergoes decomposition, and forms a very 
enriching substance. The practice, however, is chiefly suited to 
the warmer countries where vegetation is very rapid, and even then 
it argues a somewhat low state of the art, and is not the best way 
for producing decomposing matter for manures. When we are 
able to raise green food of any kind, it is better that we apply it in 
the first place to the feeding of animals, for then it not only yields 
manure, but performs another and not less important purpose. 
When, however, the practice is for any reason adopted, the pe¬ 
riod at which the plants should be ploughed down is just when they 
are coming in flower, for then they contain the largest quantity of 
readily soluble matter, and have the least exhausted the nutritive 
substance of the soil. The plants employed for this purpose by 
the ancients were chiefly the leguminous, as the Lupine, which is 
still used in Italy for the same purpose. Buckwheat is also em¬ 
ployed, and appears to* be the plant best suited for the practice in 
northern countries, for it is easily cultivated, and soon arrives at 
the necessary maturity. For the same reason, Spurry has also 
been cultivated for this purpose: nay, the clovers have been thus 
employed at the suggestion of speculative writers even in England, 
and thus the error has been committed of employing a valuable ar¬ 
ticle as a manure, which might have been employed in the first 
place in supporting live stock of the farm. 
The leaves of trees also form a vegetable manure, though not a 
good one: for although leaves enrich to a certain degree, the sur¬ 
face upon which they fall and decay, they will rarely pay the ex¬ 
pense of collecting them expressly for manuring land. 
The roots of plants disengaged from the soil in the process of 
tilling and cleaning it, are also employed as a vegetable manure. 
Some of these, however, as the couch grass, being very vivacious, 
would readily spring again: and therefore it is necessary that their 
vegetative powers be destroyed, which may be done by mixing them 
with lime, and forming in this way a compost. Many farmers, 
however, to save time or to prevent the risk of the plants springing 
again, burn them in little heaps upon the ground at the time of 
their being collected, and spread the ashes upon the surface. This 
may be sometimes convenient, but the effect is, that the principal 
nutritive part of the plant is dissipated, and nothing left but the 
carbonaceous, earthy, and other insoluble matter. 
[From the Farmer and Gardener.] 
CORNSTALK FODDER. 
In some late numbers of your “Farmer and Gardener,” I read 
with much pleasure a detail of the management of the Cornstxlk 
as a food for cattle, &tc. First induced to turn my attention to this 
subject by the different communications to be found in the “Farm¬ 
er,” for some years back, I began in 1830 to test the value of the 
refuse of corn, when subjected to the process of steaming. I was 
not long inventing a strong, rough apparatus for my purpose, which 
succeeded well, and in which I prepared about twenty bushels at 
once. Previous to this, I had, however, fallen on a plan of saving 
