Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1898-11-17

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piled manure is largely ammoniA IN
volatile form. No matter how wen
the manure is handled there will al
ways be more loss from IL in the barn
yard than in the field. Manure ON the
surface keeps the soil moist and pre-
vents the baking of q clay soil. In
our experience, right on top as near
as may be is the best possible place
for the manure.
Lately | have had an eXGmple on
small scale of the value of surface ma
nuring on a clay soil. A year ago we
built at our college u new lecture hall,
laboratory and greenhouse for my de-
partment. To get a level site for the
buildings we had to eXcavate into
red clay hillside and pile the clay tax
en- from the excavation in the lower
levels. On the grounds around this
building | have been trying to convert
this clay into a garden. Grass plats
were formedand large shrubbery beos
prepared and planted in the untamed
clay. After everything was planted
good coat of manure was placed on the
surface and left there. Last summer
was the hottest and dryest ever known
here, but it was pleasant to see how
things grew and fourished in that
clay, which was merely the subsoil
piled three or four feet deep.
This spring the soil in these beds
works as mellow as the traditional
ash heap, and the bloom Of the roses
and shrubbery of all kinds is simply
amazing, being fully twice as great as
with the same kinds of plants set in
natural soil elsewhere. / use all ma
nure as a mulch, either in garden or
field. In the garden. after setting
plants or planting seed, the manure
is spread over the surface and left
there to be slightly worked in during
cultivation. On the farm the place for
the farm manure is on the clover as
fast as it can be gotten from the sta
bles. There is but a little while dur
| ing tie earlysummer when it can not
be put there, and then we are usually
too busy to haul it out. But except
in making a fine compost for green
house use, composing is about the
worst waste of time and labor that a
farmer can engage in. Manure is
heavy and expensive stuff to handle
in proportion to it's value, and it does
not pay on the ordinary farm crops to
spend time piling and turning a lot of
earth, litter and droppings, and imag-
inc that it is all manure. Far better
get the droppings out as fast as made
where they viii help to grow the com
post all over the land in the shape of
peas or clover. A pile of well rotted
manure containing half a dozen or
more loads is simply all that is left of
four or five times the amount which
has largely gone to waste in the turn
ing and fining.
The silliest of all ways to handle
manure is to haul it to the field and
laboriously fork it into little piles,
when the spreading should be better
done at once from the wagon. Do not
be afraid of the sun shining on it or
the winds drying it, or of its running
down hill, for if the soil has a goodly
proportion of the clay in it, it viii take
and hold the manure, and when the
sod is plowed for a hoed crop and
plant food is right where the corn
needs it near the surface.
There is nothing in which there is
more waste on the farm, both of fer
tility and labor, than in the handling
of the manure Manure is not thing
to hoard, but, like money, should he
put at once to interest. Every day
you keep it idle in the barnyard you
are losing the interest it would he
making on the field. Rotting manure
is simply wasting manure. Let it rot
on the land where every drop win feed
a plant.-Prof. Massey, in Texas Farm
and Ranch.