The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1868-12-05
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Making Manure.

Every farmer understands that he must
do something to keep up the fertility of
the soil, but very few have an idea how
much more may be done than is DONE
All that can be made by stock, or that can
be hauled from other stables, or bought in
the shape of guano or phosphates, is cheer
fully appropriated but the actual making
of manure is thought not to pay. We are
led to these remarks by the following from
one of our Eastern exchanges, which is
very suggestive of the loss sustained by
the farmer, without proposing how he can
utilize these waste manures proiitably.-
Our contemporary says:
1t should be cardinal pronciple with
every farmer to economize his manure
Upon it depends his success, and, without
it, his labOrs must to very great extent
be without profit, if not attended with alb
solute loss. If it is necessary to have the
barn-yard on hillside, it is equally necessa-
ry to have the lower side of it protected by
a wall, or some arrangement by which the
escape of liquid manure may be prevented.
1t is almost equally important to have a
spout to convey rain water from the roof
of the barn i'll some other direction than
Immediately through the barn-yard. 1t is
bad enough that the manure heap should
be exposed to tile rains which fall directly
from the roof of the barn.
If such improyident farmers were to be-
hold the actual value of the fertilizing ma
teral thus lost. rolling from their purses
i'll the shape of dollars and cents, how ell
ergetically would they labor to prevent
this waste. The loss of single little gold
dollar would stir them up to a greater ac-
tivity than the direct waste of hundred
times that little dollars value in the form
of liquid manure. Year after year, silent
ly, steadily, the golden streams are flowing
from their purses. Tell them of their err
ror, and they acknowledge it, but rarely
does it happen that being reminded of it
in friendly manner, they make single
effort to correct it.
How many are there who, after a life
time Of steady, unrelnitting toll, find them
selves no richer in lands or money than
when they began! They cannot explain
the reason. Other causes may have led to
such discouraging results, but if the drain
of liquid maunres from their barn-yards
had been checked when they began farm
ing, very many of these unsuccessful ones
would have been as prosperous as their
more provident neighbors.
Every farmer subscribes to this; he
knows it well but thinks he can do no bet
ter, "under the circumstances, than to
let it 60 He thinks, if he had convenien-
ces, he would like to try the effects of Ii
quid manure /; but 'every thing wants do
ing first" and it gets neglected or, if he
had any vegetable refuse at hand which he
could haul to soak up the waste liquid, he
would do that, but such waste he has not
Now one of the very best things to soak
up manure water, and make into the best
of manure, is common clay. 1t will pay
any farmer well to haul clay to his barn
yard for its absorbing properties. When
this cannot be had, the washing of road
sides, cleaning of ditches or anything that
comes to hand, may be used instead
There are many other more complicated
ways of "making manures - by chemical
ingredients, but this is a simple one, which
every one can understand. All it wants is
the command of labor, and this is the
main point in which so many farmers err.
Not to "employ much,'' but to do all pos.
sible oneself, and let the crest CO." is the
general plan. The farmer forgets that
when he buys ton of guano he has en-
plOyed sailors, ship-owners, commission
merchants, and many others, at rate at
which another hand on his farm, employed
at nothing else but making manure, would
have produced him UNNECESSARILY more
value. 1t is not so much what is made, as
what is saved, that leads to riches and
how to economist in manure, and yet have
an abundance, is one of the great secrets
of becoming a ii Ii farmer.