News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-09-07
THE FARM.

Mr.. W. D. Philbrick, o successful
market gardener of Massachusetts,
whose practical experience and opinions
we have had frequent occasion to quote,
contributes to the NesO England Farmer
this useful hint about the compost heap:
"The manure made at this time of
the year is subject to a good deal of
waste by evaporation, unless taken care
of. If thrown into the pig pen, it will
be partially worked up, and kept from
burning, or pile in alternate layers with
loan or peat, to be composted. If this
compost heap could be made in Il cellar
or under a shed and kept moist by lib
eral watering with liquid manure, pro-
duct will result that is hard to beat in
fertilizing a garden. The floor upon
which the compost is made is best made
of cobble-stones or bricks laid in cement
or tar and gravel, 80 as to be water
tight and solid enough to bear a cart it
should have a slight descent toward
a cistern which will catch the drainage,
which should be provided with chain
pump for raising the same to the top of
the compost heap, where it can easily
be distributed by means of a gutter
with perforated bottom. On wet days
all hands on the farm may be probably
employed working over the compost in
a shed or cellar and wetting it down
with the drainage of the heap, which
may be easily replenished with night
soil whenever required. The waste from
a heap of hot strawy horse dung in the
open air in summer is very great-fre-
quently more than half the value-and
consists of the most valuable as well as
the most volatile of its elements, the
ammonia. Gather up all weeds that
are going to seed and remove them to
the pig-pen or compost heap. Ii the
manure is piled and worked over two or
three tunes before using, it will destroy
all or nearly all the noxious seeds"
From the same source we find the
following on late and early green's
"Spinach seed for autumn and winter
sale is sown about August 18th. The
land should be very rich and free from
the seeds of pursiane and barn grass,
which grow very rapidly in the hot
weather of August and early September.
The seed should be sown rather more
deeply in dry weather than in moist,
and the surface well rolled after sewing
to insuBe termination. For wintering
over in the field it is better to defer the
sowing of spinach seed till August 18th
to September Josh. The earlier SOW
ings will come to market early in
spring, the later ones in May. For
wintering spinach in the field good,
strong clay soil, with sufficient decIivity
to shed the surface water quickly, with
out washing is best. Lighter soils are
more subject to winter-killing. If the soil
is naturally nearly level it may be made
to answer we'll by throwing it into ridges
with pillow, gathering the ridges twice
by back-furrowing in beds about ten
feet wide; care should then be taken to
make an outlet for the water from the
burrows between the beds. The land
spinach should be heavily manured-
the more manure the more spinach
but it should be carefully covered and
worked into the soil, or there is danger
that the land will be made too porous
for free termination of the seed in hot,
dry weather. Lettuce seed of the white
seeded variety is usually sown the last
week in August for transplanting into
hotbeds and greenhouses about Septem-
Der 20. This will come to market in
November.