The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1880-04-07
A Muck Bed-Will it Pay to Haul
it out for Manure!


out on his land or to invest the time
and money this would cost in SUI
perphosphate or some other fertilizer.
He can buy yard manure for one
dollar load one and one-ha1f miles
away it is coarse, however, and
contains great deal of unrotted
straw. He inquiries whether Dana's
Muck Manual is trustworthy guide
on the muck question. He cuts out
the muck or peat at present IN Au-
gust, allows it to dry and uses it as
fuel, for which purpose it lasts as
long as well seasoned hard wood, and
makes much hotter fire. 1t makes
large amount of ashes, but they
are lighter than dust, and he asks
whether these ashes are anywhere
nearly as good as wood ashes for fer
tilizing purposes.
ANSWER BY PROF. G. c. CALDWELL.
Two objects are generally sup.
posed to be accomplished by the
use of stable manure, viz, feeding
the plant with nitrogen, potash and
phosphoric acid, and, secondly, the
Improvement of the physical quail
ties of the soil by keeping up or per.
haps even increasing the quantity of
humus, or decaying remains Of
plants. This humus, mixed in with
the clay of a heavy soil, makes it
lighter, or with too sandy soil gives
it body, and makes it less leachy and
hungry, so that manures do not run
through it like water through a
strainer; and there are good reasons
for the belief that humus serves other
useful purposes besides this. Now,
if muck is to replace stable manure
it should contain the same substances
and in about the same proportions;
but in attempting to compare the
two materials as to the quantity OF
nitrogen, phosphorc acid and potash
that they contain, we are met at the
outset by a serious difficulty in the
great variability in the composition
Of the former. Professor Johnson,
in Analysing SO samples Of air-dried
muck, found the nitrogen TO vary
from nearly five pounds to 20
pounds in 1000, or an average OF
Is pounds. Stable manure, in It's or
binary condition, as spread on the
field, contains about 4 J pounds o.
nitrogen in 1000. Therefore, as faI
as mere quantity OF nitrogen is con-
cerned, we shall be likely to have in
load of swamp muck of fair quail
ity, which has been exposed to the
air for considerable time till its sur
plus water is dried out, more, and
perhaps a good deal more nitrogen
than in a load Of stable manure.
But the same quantity of nitrogen
in one case may not make as much
of crop as in the other; small
part of the nitrogen in stable ma
nure is all ready for the use Of the
plant, while larger part, before it
can serve as food, has to undergo a
change in respect to its forms Of COM
bination, which requires time. In
muck part of the nitrogen may be,
as in stable manure, ready for The
plant, but on the other hand, pretty
much all OF it may happen to be in
this inert and, for the present, use
less condition. AS TO phosphoric
acid and potash, the two other sub
stances which are ted to plants in
stable manure, muck is usually SO
poor in them as compared with the
manure that they may well be left
out of account. This view of the
case is supported by the results of
some experiments by Professor John.
son, which showed that by simply
adding wood ashes, containing much
phosphoric acid and potash, to muck,
eight times as much plant growth
was obtained as with pure muck. AS
to the quantity OF humus-torming
material in muck, that also varies
widely; nine-tenths Of it may be
combustible matter, capable of max.
ing humus, and generally over one
half of it is of this character but
where it contains large proportion
of sand, not over a fourth of it may
be combustible; it contains the more
humus-t forming material the smaller
the quantity of ash that it leaves
when burned. Ordinary stable ma
nure contains about one.tifth of its
weight of combustible matter; there
fore, we'll air-dried muck may make
more humus in the soil than an equal
weight OF stable manure, with its
much larger proportion of water.
1t is plain that, without making
chemical analysis of the muck which
our innuirinu tri end has in snch ahun-