Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-01-14
MANUREs AND MANURING.
The Pleasing Lessons a Farmer May Learn
as He Works In His Yards.

in agricultural knowledge. His unpar-
alleled genius is exemplified by his Won
derful knowledge of practical human
affairs as well as of his thorough under
standing of human nature. But while
his knowledge of practical agriculture
was extensive, yet we do not find that he
had any of that insight into the inner
life of the farm which might have been
expected from the greatest poet the
world has produced We are led to this
remark by reading the lines OF his in
which he says
1.-THE earth's thief
That feeds and breeds by compostnre
lstolen
From general excrement"
This is low and base view of the
necessary practice of manuring and a
very imperfect idea of what manure is.
True the common understanding of it
is much like this, but it is not a just or
worthy one in any sense Manure is by
no means wholly excrementitious mat
ter, nor was it so in Shakespeare's
time, when the art of making composts
and the use of burned clay and
lime were commonly practicei And
even excrementitious matter, although
disagreeable and disgusting to the COM
mon sense, when considered as manure,
loses its oflcnsivencss, and may even be
thought of with something akin to pleas
ure as one considers the wonderful trans
formations wrought by nature in the
processes of manuring and the growth
of plants. Instead of the coarse words
of the poet might be used the truer ones
"The earths a'recreator,
Which out OF death makes life,
And from dead matter brings
New verdure, flowers and fruits"
Such, indeed, is the true sense in
which manure is to be considered. 1t is
dead matter the surplus waste Of life,
and the beautiful clover blossom which
the farmer plows under the furrow
should be no more highly thought of in
its manurial sense than the refuse of it
after it has contributed to the support of
COW and her product of delicious milk
and rich, unctuous cream and fragrant
golden butter. All dead matter is disa-
greeable. The disgust of Hamlet as he
smelled the decayed skull which the old
grave-digger threw out of the re-dug
grave was far different from the tender
ness with which related survivor would
regard the similar cherished remains of
an ancestor. 1t is the sense in which we
consider such things which gives oflense
in one case and pleasure in another
And the farmer who glories in the big
ness of his manure pile meyer expert
ences the disgust of the stranger who
passes along the road on the other side
of the fence, and, as Hamlet remarked,
thinks, if he does not say: "And smells
so; taught"
The thoughtful farmer may learn
many pleasing and instructive lesson
as he works in his yards, and makes his
compost heaps, spreads the manure, top
dresses his wheat, which is to make the
fragrant new baked loaf which is lux
ury unsurpassed on the table, and
watches the change of this dead waste
matter into the verdant luxuriant herb
age; the sweet-scented rose. the luscious
peach, the melting sugary pear, the
juicy grape, the fattening corn, and the
infinitely varied products of the garden,
the orchard and the field. How it is
done is mystery which the chemist
can not reveal to him, nor " the NAL
odorous wastes can be made to produce
the various sweet scents and agreeable
flavors which all these products possess.
Nevertheless, faint idea of it may be
gained as the farmer on the winter even.
ings studies his handbooks of chemistry,
and learns that the pear odor, the pine
apple flavor and the numerous ilavOrine
odors and essences of the cook are al
most identical in composition with some
of the most intolerable scents of the al
cohols and the others, and by what 9
comparatively small and inconsiderablt
change of elements these effects are pro
duced, in many cases mere rearrange'
ment of atoms, much in the same man
ner as one might rearrangc a pile. u
bricks into round or square or octag
onal one, or into long, narrow one
or into a short, wide one, and with thu
very same materials form entirely diff
ferent combinations. This is q rougl
and familiar way of explaining this kint
of chemical combinations of atoms, bu
it expresses the precise nature of thu
change and helps to make it under
stood.
Manuring is entirely u chemical pro
cess, and the ordinary barnyard MANURE
differs only in form from those so-calle,
artificial compounds which we tern
commercial fertilizers. Indeed we hav,
often an erroneous conception of wha
manure is, for the majority of farmer
believe it contains everything that i
needed by the soil for the production o
crops; while on the contrary it is largel
deficient in the most valuable elements
and the larger part of it consists Q
water and carbonaceous elements whic
some persons would have us believe ar
worthless for plant food. The truth
and it has only been learned within
forty years past-that farmers can nc
depend on the barnyard alone for ma
nure, but are compelled to use ever
fertilizing substance which they ca
procure, and that nitrate of soda, phos
phate of lime, lime, gypsum, salt, pot
ash, magnesia and various nitrogenou
substances are Indispensable for III
profitable culture of farm crops, includ
ing fruits, to help out the deficiencies c
manure. But manure differs in noelt
gree from these substances in its ele
ments; its form is different, and so iS il
source, and the farmer may reasonabl
look upon all of them in the same ligf
precisely, as plant food, and materis
from which new and living matter
produced by process and change s
wonderful in its power and wisdem 8
the original creation of organized liy
ing substance,-Hesry Stepart, in \
Y Times.
A lady from MICHIGAN reisees a yer