tation, would
save much sickness; while the labor would pay a larger per-cent. profit
than any other performed on the soil. No manures should be allowed to
ferment, or decay, without being mixed or covered with enough common
earth, sand, peat, or muck, to retain all the gases and exhalations of
such putrescence. The smallest quantity that will answer is one load of
earth to two of the decaying substances. The proportions reversed would
be better: put one bushel of lime to two loads, two quarts of ground
plaster, and half a bushel of ashes, and you have the very best compost
heap. The following are brief general rules for the preparation of
manures. It is always most economical to feed cattle in the stable or
under cover, and never have manure exposed to the weather. But if cattle
must be fed outdoor, let them be fed in a yard, lowest in the centre,
that the liquids and washings may run into the centre, and be absorbed
by straw and litter. Put manure on the land, or into heaps for compost,
before very warm weather. Always feed sheep under cover, and keep their
manure from rain; heap it together with earth in the spring, or apply it
to the soil at once. Manure thrown out of a stable should be kept under
cover, out of the rain, and not allowed to heat in winter; its best
qualities are evaporated by fermentation in the yard. Manures often
rained on in winter, or left in large piles without intermixture of
earth, lime, plaster, and ashes, will ferment and waste. Construct your
stables so that the liquid manure will run into a vat filled with earth;
muck is best. Experiments have shown that the liquid manures are at
least one sixth better than the solid. A gentleman dug a pit, thirty-six
feet square and four feet deep, and walled it in on all sides. He filled
his vat from a cultivated field, and so constructed his sewers from the
stables adjoining that the urine saturated the whole. He kept fourteen
head of cattle there for five months, allowing none but the liquid part
of the manure to pass into the vat. He spread forty loads of this on an
acre. For ten years he tried equal quantities of this and well rotted
and prepared stable-manure, side by side, in the same field, and
obtained great crops; but in no stage of their growth could he see that
crops on the land manured from the stable were any better than those
that had received only the soil from the vat. The latter were quite as
good as the former. The contents of his vat man