Year: 1874

The Value and Treatment of Muck.


We doubt not many farmers who lave
muck beds will find much information and
many valuable suggestions from the following
brief but caraful description of the quality,
value and treatment of muc.ks The paper
was read at recent meeting of the Ameri-
can Institute Farmers Club by DR.. E. w.
Sylvester of Lyons, whom we know to be
one of the most deserving and practically
scientific agriculturists of western New York.
The doctor writes:


"The word muck is applied by some witt
ers to all kinds of manures, including the
droppings pf animals, but for the preeent pa
per it will be used as descriptive of the dark
composition taken from swamps and low
lands, and which is usually composed of
muck, peat and geine, muck being properly
the surface in these natural deposits, peat the
more thoroughly decomposed vegetable mat,
Ter, and geine the really valuable substance
to the farmers contained in the two. Geine
is thus defined by Worcester: Vegetable
earth or mould, the soluble brown matter
which may be extracted from soils by the ac-
sion of water. This is the substance we
need for plant food, and is contained in the
peat and muck in varying proportions, ac-
cording to tre locality from which the sample
is taken. 1t is pretended by some that all
swamp muck contains percentage of acid,
and must not be applied directly to the field
from the bed. determined to test the truth
OF this, and in 1858 drew in autumn a few
loads of muck directly from its bed and
spread evenly over Sod ground of timothy and
clover (the soil being strong loam) at the
rate of about twenty loads to the acre, and
drove stakes to facilitate the observation of the
hut tho Hollon;nr cpr;,r ocJ
summer no stakes were required to mark the
spot, for the crop was of a darker color,
stronger growth. and apparently very much
benefited by the application. 1t is proper to
remark in this connection that had previ-
Ously tested several samples of the muck
with soda, and could find no acid present. 1t
has been, however, my usual custom to pie
pare the muck before applying lit to the culti-
vated land. The land from which the muck
is dug requires to be drained, and generous
broad ditch is lined off, and two men with
draw and deposite upon the muck pile, which
is about forty rods distant, an average of six
teen to twenty loads per day, the muck Eeing
thrown from the ditch Into the truck, and
the ditch finiseed in g0on style as the muck
is dawn away. Counting the cost of team
and extra man at $5 per day, the muck costs
only 25 cents per load, and you have the
ditching without any expense. But / have
found 1t best to combine otherifertilizers with
the muck, and this has given rise to two diff
ferenS methods of composing. First, muck
and stable manure-a number of loads of
muck are dumped OH the ground, forming
bed in position at any time approachable in
summer or winter, usually at small distance
from the barn, and upon this bed is drawn
and dumped stable manure, and upan these
two another layer of muck, thus sandwich
ing the muck and manure until the pile is so
high that it is inconvenient driving upon it,
the muck and manure having been intermin-
gled to a considerable extent by driving over
it as each load is deposited. The proportion
is usually one load Of stable manure to five
loads of muck. have thus prepared an ag-
ricultural sandwich, which is devoured by
the hungry soil, when applied, with gusto.
Second, muck and lime, ashes and muck, So
da and muck, potash and muck, after re-
peated experiments, have proved themselves
very valuable, but as unleached wood ashes
are difficult to be obtained, have usually
sandwiched the muck with gas lime, which is
very cheap, and in my location easily obtain
ed. The pile of lime and muck is prepared
in similar manner, with this difference; we
put only one load of lime to ten of muck,
taking care that it is evenly distributed
through the mass. These piles OF compost
are allowed to remain about six months, un-
til late winter or early spring, when they are
drawn upon the land intended to be fertilized
end where they are Immediately available as
plant food. Every man who has garden
has felt the want of fertilizer, easily accessi-
BILE, which will produce the growth of weeds
among the small plants he is cultivating. /
use, for the purpose of preparing my alkaline
times old sugar hogsheads will hold water af-
ter being soaked. Into this put four bushels
of muck or peat and one bushel of uneached
ashes orr its equivalent OF potash, and then
fill the hogshead with water. This is
thoroughly stirred once day for three days,
when the liquid will be about the color of the
liquor in the tanners vats, and may be ap-
piled in the liquid form to any kind of garden
vegetables or small fruits at the time OF sun
set, with the most satisfactory results. If
muck is accessible in your locality, and you
will try this only once, have no doubt it
will become with you an annual friend. The
hogshead may have the alkaline geine dipped
out, and be filed again two or three times, or
SO long as the dissolving geine shall impart
proper color to the water. 1t is said that
Peru, by selling one-half of her guano beds to
the United States and England can pay off all
of her national debt. With these beds of al
most pure geine distributed here and there
over almost the entire country, why not util-
ize them and pay our own national debt?
This natural fertilizer is at your very doors;
is neither dear bought nor far fetched and
is very much more lasting than the best gu
ano. 1t will not bring as large crop the
first year, but with an average of five years it
will outdo the guano and prove more satis-
factory. 1t is true the geine has not so much
nitrogen as the guano, but by composing we
can generate fermentation and draw the
nitrogen from the clouds and the air.''