Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1864-06-22
MarveIs of Liquid Manure.


sever years before, IN eight acres
from whichthe owner had been driven
by running deeply in debt at the grog
shop. The drunkard's acres had o.
course become starved and desolate
the fences were half down, there wai
no garden, and the hovel, in which hi
unhappy family was once snugly
housed, appeared ready to take itf
departure on the wings Of the wind
Every fruit-tree had died. In thi:
squaiid condition the newly arrived
German took possession, with the
privilege of purchasing for 5000. His
whole capital was three dollars. He
began with four pigs which he paid
for in work. The manure from these
was daily emptied into an empty but
ter-frkin, which also served as a fam
lily water-closet, and the whole was
converted into liquid manure, which
was supplied to eabbages and onions.
A gentleman who lived near, and
who noted the progress of this indust-
rious man, assured me that even in
the exhausted soil where the crops
We're planted the growth was almost
incredible. On turnips and r~uta-bagas
the effect was equally great. Long
before winter set in, this hero had
bought a COW, for while his own crops
We're growing he had earned money
by working around the neighborhood.
He readily obtained credit at the
store, for he WAS soon discovered TO
be deserving. When away at work,
his wife piled the hoe, and acted as
mistress of the aforesaid butter-tub,
while the children pulled weeds
His cabbages and roots exceeded any
in township; they discharged his little
s~tore-hilIs, and kept his cow during
the winter, while the living cow and
the dead pigs kept the entire family,
for they lived about as close to the
wind as possible.
The mans passion was for liquid
manure. If he had done SO much
with a tub, he was comparatively rich
with a COW. Then he sunk a hogs
head in the ground, conducted the
wash Of the kitchen into it, and there
also emptied the droppings from the
cow. 1t was water closet for her as
well as for the family. 1t is true that
few of us would fancy such a smell
ing bottle at the kitchen door; but it
never became nuisance, for he kept
it innoxious by frequent applications
of plaster, which improved as we'll as
purified the whole contents. 1t was
laborious to transport the fluid to his
crops, but a wheelbarrow came the
second year to lessen the labor
There happened, by the merest acct
dent, to be a quarter of an acre of
raspberries surviving on the place
He dug all round these to the depth
of eighteen inches, trimmed them up,
kept out the weeds, and gave them
enormous quantities of liquid manure.
The yield was most extraordinary,
for the second year of his location
there he sold SS4 worth of fruit
This encouraged him to plant more,
until at the end of four years he had
made enough, from his raspherries
alone, not only to pay for his eight
acres, but to accumulate a multitude
of comforts around him. In all this
application of liquid manure his wife
had aided him very much.
1t was natural for me to feel great
interest in a case like this, so | called
repeatedly to see the grounds and
converse with the German owner
As il was sever years from his begin
ming when / first became acquainted
with him, his little farm bore no re-
semblance to its condition when he
took possession. There were signs
of thrift all over it. His fences were
new and clear of Indigenous; bis
house had been completely renovated;
he had built a large barn and cattle
sheds, while his garden was immeas-
urably better than mine. Every
thing was in a condition exceeding all
that | had seer elsewhere. His two
girls had grown up into handsome
young women and had been for years
at school; All this time he had con-
tinued to enlarge his means of manu-
featuring and applying liquid manure
as upon its use he placed his main de-
pendence. He had sunk a large brick
eistern in his barn-yard, into which
all the liquor from six cows and two
horses was conducted, as well as the
wash from the pig-pen and the barn
yard. A fine pnmp in the cistern en-
abled him to keep his manure-heap
constantly saturated, the heap being
always under cover, and to fill a hogs
head mounted on wheels, from which
he discharged the contents over his
ground. The tub and underground
hogshead with which he commenced
were of course obsolete. If it be
possible to build a monument out Of.
liquid manure, here was one on this
farm Of eight acres. Its owner devel-
oped another peculiarity-he had no
desire to buy more land.
| was so impressed by the example
of the thriving German referred to,
that / resolved to initiate him. He
had given me a rich lesson in the art
of manufacturing cheaply,
though l thought it did not go far
enough. Yet L made an immediate
beginning by building a tank in the
b~arn-yard, into which the wash from
stable, pig-pen, and yard was con-
Quoted. This las pumped up and
distributed over the top of the ma
nure heap under the shed, one or
twice weekly. A huge compost-heap
was made of leaves, each layer being
saturated with the liquor as the heap
accumulated, so that the whole mass
was moist with fluid manure. 1t was
never suffered to become dry. Now,
as in the centre of a manure heap
there is no winter, decomposition
went on at a rapid rate, especially
among the leaves; stimulated by the