The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1871-06-15
How to Save Manure at Home.

making manure on my own plantation. l
make it a business and attend to it as we'll as
q / do to chopping out my cotton, and am at it
vuNhte time, and it pays Inc we'll.
Seeing the Dickson Fertilizer Company of
Augusta has offered premiums equal to
4. thousand dollars cash, for upland crops made
on homemade manure, it may pc some
young farmers will care to know all the ele-
ments of.manurc that go to waste on his own
land, and will give my plan, with the re-
mark that he will do we'll. to follow it till ne
finds plan. that is better. Homemade ma
nure is the best of all kinds, and the average
cost of it need not be over one dollar per
.stoda, ten tons being more than equal to one
ton of the best lguano sold do consider,
however, the Dickson Company has done
we'll to put premium to encourage this
branch of economy on the plantations, for the
more one makes at home, the more he will find
he needs, and will buy. Nine-tenths Of our
people don't know what rich lands will do,
and when they.fnd it out all sorts of ma
nurcs will besproperly appreciated. But to
my plan.
1 have an old. mule and dump cart, and
hire an old darkey every year, whose only
labor is to hasl manure and stuff to make it.
l never stop him to go for the mail, nor to
chop cotton, nor to pick cotton even. Every
day that old man hauls with his mule, and if
ever I have spare hand from the crop |
send him to help in the same business
Leaves and pine straw to fill my stalls and
put under my COW sheds, and the same mix
ed with rich dirt from the woods to cover all
my lot a foot or two feet deep; sweeping
from the yard, garbage from the garden, and
droppings from stock outside the lot and in
the highways put on the compost heap
now and then barrel oflime or plaster from
town to use in composing. All these the
cart gathers in from day to day. My stables
are cleaned out and relittered as often as the
stalls set y littlelfouL, and all the cleanings
go under the manure shed to rot down thor
oughly, and now and then peck Of plaster
thrown over it tojsaye the ammonia. Or, if
the manure shed is full then T haul to a
convenisialspot in the field where it is to
be used, and there make into neat heap
and cover well with earth. If it is very
damp and strong some dry yearth mixed in
with the pile occasionally prevents evapora-
tiea and 6refanging.~.:@,
NV horse lot or barn-yard is cleaned out
but once year, the litter being put in grad
ually, SO that each layer becomes well tramp
ed. All my cattle and hogs are turned in
here every night, @and oc. .asionally a little
corn thrown to the hogs.on the litter, to set
them roofing and turning it over, which
' m9kesit, the better In the winter | can
USUALLY 1hauI out as much as 200 to 300
cart loads from this lot alone but i'll do
ing this all MY teams and hands help, as it
isA0 chsgest JOB of the kind in the year.
-sAhytimesafer corn is gathered begin to
haul out and bank up manure in the field
in convenient piles and cover with dirt.
My compost heap, is made altogether
from about the house and garden and wood
pile. All the rotted chips, cinders, ashes,
yard sweepings and garbage go on this pile
with Sometimes little lime to decompose it
thoroughly, and strong soap-suds from the
wash pot poured on. This makes the finest
and richest of, all manure heaps; and while
it costs lcasts Of all, being built up almost
entirely by house servants in cleaning about
the yard and garden it will often prove equal
to onethird its weight in Peruvian guano.
The hog-pen, when I am fattening my
hogs, lis source of the best of all mauures
My old carter throws in load of litter
every day on two filing the pen foot deep
by e.time the; hogs are killed, and l find
this the most, durable in it's effect Of all the
manures Eshaye ever usee. 49,
r, I do not know how many tons Of all sorts
'of;manure I get every year. I think, with
all the hauling back and forth, I get three
cart loads on an. average every day availa-
BILE for use, counting Of course, all the help
!. put in the winter and spring. This
would give ;pine hundred eart,loads, equal
certainly to three hundred tons, and worth,
ut my calculation, $500, aat least. And
.aA this il, as ,Imay safely say, the yield
dsgnone man and mule. with only such help
1e'Tes as can throw in conveniently. I use my
manure literally as I go, sometimes putting
200 cart loads to an acre, often loo, ,1and
when once such liberal dressing is plowed
in that land will be rich for several years