k, Brattleboro,
Vt., who has described this method, _much more muck can thus be well
prepared for use_ in the spring, than by any of the ordinary modes of
composting. When the dung and muck are removed from the stable, they
should be well intermixed, and as fast as the compost is prepared, it
should be put into a compact heap, and covered with a layer of muck
several inches thick. It will then hardly require any shelter if used in
the spring.

If the peat be sufficiently dry and powdery, or free from tough lumps,
it may usefully serve as bedding, or litter for horses and cattle, as it
absorbs the urine, and is sufficiently mixed with the dung in the
operation of cleaning the stable. It is especially good in the pig-pen,
where the animals themselves work over the compost in the most thorough
manner, especially if a few kernels of corn be occasionally scattered
upon it.

Mr. Edwin Hoyt, of New Canaan, Conn., writes:--"Our horse stables are
constructed with a movable floor and pit beneath, which holds 20 loads
of muck of 25 bushels per load. Spring and fall, this pit is filled with
fresh muck, which receives all the urine of the horses, and being
occasionally worked over and mixed, furnishes us annually with 40 loads
of the most valuable manure."

"Our stables are sprinkled with muck every morning, at the rate of one
bushel per stall, and the smell of ammonia, etc., so offensive in most
stables, is never perceived in ours. Not only are the stables kept
sweet, but the ammonia is saved by this procedure."

When it is preferred to make the compost out of doors, the plan
generally followed is to lay down a bed of weathered peat, say eight to
twelve inches thick; cover this with a layer of stable dung, of four to
eight inches; put on another stratum of peat, and so, until a heap of
three to four feet is built up. The heap may be six to eight feet wide,
and indefinitely long. It should be finished with a thick coating of
peat, and the manure should be covered as fast as brought out.

The proportions of manure and peat should vary somewhat according to
their quality and characters. Strawy manure, or that from milch-cows,
will "ferment" less peat than clear dung, especially when the latter is
made by horses or highly fed animals. Some kinds of peat heat much
easier than others. There are peats which will ferment of themselves in
warm moist weather--even in the bog, giving off ammonia in perceptible
though small amount. Exper