Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-09-05
~ trf. farm.
Making Manure.

This work is always in order, and
you cannot be too assiduous or diligent
in accomplishing it. On every farm,
or within easy reach, and at the prop
er season readily handled, there is
great amount of material often wasted,
and by its very waste doing injury,
which, properly husbanded and man.
aged, might add greatly to the size and
value of your compost heaps, and as a
consequence to your crops. The basis
of all composts, that which gives val
ne quickly and certainly to all the rest,
is stable or barn yard manure. After
this, it may be put down as an axiom
that everything is useful which ever
had life, whether Of animal or vegeta-
BILE origin. To enumerate these would
be tedious, but we instance leaves, pine
skaters, swamp muck, peat, weeds and
briers from the fence corners, marsh
and river mud, road scrapings, old sods,
waste from the house, ashes from the
kitchen, Stops, dead animals, &C., sc.
The best mode of treating these and
kindred substances is to have prepar
ed in the barn-yard a hollow, somewhat
dished in shape, and mix in alternate
layers of manure from the stables and
COW and pig pens, and all of the mat
ters we have named which can be gath
cred together on or near the premises.
The time of a hand and a horse and
cart will be well spent in most cases III
accommodating materials. If the piles
so made can be arranged so that occa-
sionally they can be wet with liquor
manure, or even with water, the fer
mentation will be more rapid. If, as
the piles are built up as described, a
good sprinkling of plaster be added to
each layer its effect will be to save
much of the liberated ammonia which
might otherwise be wasted. The fer
mentation or decomposition must not
be allowed to progress too far so that
the materials are burned. When this
stage is approached the piles should be
turned over and more water added.
Where the liquid manure, or urine
from the stables cannot be saved in its
natural condition, provision should be
made by which by suitable absorbents
it may be taken up and so preserved.
If the stalls are so constructed that it
can be led off into pits or reservoirs it
is then conveniently handled, but 9TH
erwise straw, leaves, pine skaters,
muck or saw-dust are found convent
ent to take it up.
Those farmers who have not been
accustomed to save and utilize the SUBJ
stances we refer to, would be surpris-
ed at the increase in the size and eff
cheney of their manure piles if they
would once make the trial as we recon-
mend above. The stable manure fur
nishes the heat, through which many
of the other materials mixed with it
lose their hard and woody structure
and become fit, by their decomposition,
to serve as food for other and more use
full plants. The changes which take
place in the midst Of a collection and
breaking up ofsuch numerous and dis
similar ingredients, animal, vegetable
and mineral, as we have alluded to, are
doubtless intricate and varied, but Ma
ture loses little, and all fthese changes
will be found doubtless of character
to prepare these rough and hurtful
substances to become Of the highest
service in building up new forms of
vegetable life.-Anaerjcaaa Farmer.