A PRIZE ESSAY. 
59 
swamp muck and alkali. You can hardly go wrong 
here by using too much ; the great danger is, you will 
use too little alkali. But calculating on the propor¬ 
tion of mould in fresh-dug swamp muck, or peat, it 
may be stated as a rule, grounded on the quantity of 
quickening power in a cord of stable manure, that 
every cord of swamp muck requires eight bushels of 
common ashes, or thirty pounds of common potash, or 
twenty pounds of white or soda ash, to convert it into 
manure equal, cord for cord, to that from your stable. 
Dig up your peat in the fall, let it lie over winter to 
fall to powder, calculate your quantity when fresh dug, 
and allow nothing for shrinking in the spring; when 
your alkali is to be well mixed in with the mould, and, 
after shovelling over for a few weeks, use it as you 
would stable manure. 
These quantities of ashes and alkali are the lowest 
which may be advised. Three or four times this 
amount may be used with advantage, but both the 
quantity of alkali and the number of loads per acre 
must and will be determined by each for himself. It 
is a question of ways and means, rather than of prac¬ 
tice. But supposing the smallest quantity of ashes or 
of alkali to be used which we have advised, then at 
least five cords of the compost should be used per 
acre. This may be applied to any soil, light or heavy. 
But there is another form of this same swamp muck 
and alkali, which should be used only on light, loamy, 
sandy soils, to produce its greatest benefit, though 
even on heavy soils, if not very wet, it may be used 
with great advantage. This is a compost of one cord 
of spent ashes to three cords of swamp muck. This 
is decidedly the best mixture which has yet been tried. 
We have in this all that mixture of various salt and 
mould which plants want, and both by the action of 
the mould and by that of the air, the alkali of the 
spent ashes, which no leaching would extract, is soon 
let loose, and produces all the effects of So much clear 
potash or soda. 
