over the manure, has a tendency
to exclude the air and thus retard fermentation. In the winter there is
certainly no necessity for resorting to any means for checking
fermentation. In the spring or summer it may be well to compress the
heap a little, but not more, I think, than can be done by the trampling
of the workman in spreading the manure on the heap.

"You do not," said the Doctor, "adopt the old-fashioned English plan of
keeping your manure in a basin in the barn-yard, and yet I should think
it has some advantages."

"I practised it here," said I, "for some years. I plowed and scraped a
large hole or basin in the yard four or five feet deep, with a gradual
slope at one end for convenience in drawing out the loads--the other
sides being much steeper. I also made a tank at the bottom to hold the
drainage, and had a pump in it to pump the liquid back on to the heap in
dry weather. We threw or wheeled the manure from the stables and
pig-pens into this basin, but I did not like the plan, for two reasons:
(1,) the manure being spread over so large a surface froze during
winter, and (2,) during the spring there was so much water in the basin
that it checked fermentation."

Now, instead of spreading it all over the basin, we commenced a small
heap on one of the sloping sides of the basin; with a horse and cart we
drew to this heap, just as winter set in, every bit of manure that could
be found on the premises, and everything that would make manure. When
got all together, it made a heap seven or eight feet wide, twenty feet
long, and three or four feet high. We then laid planks on the heap, and
every day, as the pig-pens, cow and horse stables were cleaned out, the
manure was wheeled on to the heap and shaken out and spread about. The
heap soon commenced to ferment, and when the cold weather set in,
although the sides and some parts of the top froze a little, the inside
kept quite warm. Little chimneys were formed in the heap, where the heat
and steam escaped. Other parts of the heap would be covered with a thin
crust of frozen manure. By taking a few forkfuls of the latter, and
placing them on the top of the "chimneys," they checked the escape of
steam, and had a tendency to distribute the heat to other parts of the
heap. In this way the fermentation became more general throughout all
the mass, and not so violent at any one spot.

"But why be at all this trouble?" --For several reasons. First. It saves
labor in th