f this compost, we find them in
the highest degree satisfactory. We have raised 30 to 35 bushels of rye
per acre on land that without it could have yielded 6 or 8 bushels at
the utmost. This year we have corn that will give 60 to 70 bushels per
acre, that otherwise would yield but 20 to 25 bushels. It makes large
potatoes, excellent turnips and carrots."

Fish compost thus prepared, is a uniform mass of fishy but not
putrefactive odor, not disagreeable to handle. It retains perfectly all
the fertilizing power of the fish. Lands, manured with this compost,
will keep in heart and improve: while, as is well known to our coast
farmers, the use of fish alone is ruinous in the end, on light soils.

It is obvious that _any other easily decomposing animal matters, as
slaughter-house offal, soap boiler's scraps, glue waste, horn shavings,
shoddy, castor pummace, cotton seed-meal, etc., etc._, may be composted
in a similar manner, and that several or all these substances may be
made together into one compost.

In case of the composts with yard manure, guano and other animal
matters, the alkali, _ammonia_, formed in the fermentation, greatly
promotes chemical change, and it would appear that this substance, on
some accounts, excels all others in its efficacy. The other alkaline
bodies, _potash_, _soda_ and _lime_, are however scarcely less active in
this respect, and being at the same time, of themselves, useful
fertilizers, they also may be employed in preparing muck composts.

_Potash-lye_ and _soda-ash_ have been recommended for composting with
muck; but, although they are no doubt highly efficacious, they are too
costly for extended use.

The other alkaline materials that may be cheaply employed, and are
recommended, are _wood-ashes_, leached and unleached, _ashes of peat_,
_shell marl_, (consisting of carbonate of lime,) _quick lime_, _gas
lime_, and what is called "_salt and lime mixture_."

With regard to the proportions to be used, no very definite rules can be
laid down; but we may safely follow those who have had experience in the
matter. Thus, to a cord of muck, which is about 100 bushels, may be
added, of unleached wood ashes twelve bushels, or of leached wood ashes
twenty bushels, or of peat ashes twenty bushels, or of marl, or of gas
lime twenty bushels. Ten bushels of quick lime, slaked with water or
salt-brine previous to use, is enough for a cord of muck.

Instead of using the above mentioned substances sin