SAVING AND APPLYING MANURE. The -value of manure lies in its soluble parts, except in so far as it,s mechanical action may change the condition of the soil. So, the value of any given soil, aside from its mechanical texture, is contained in its soluble parts given up through -vegetable decompostion, or the chemical action _and re-action constantly going on through the _grOwing season. Arthur Young, the celebrated English agricultural writer and experimenter, years ago took five equal portions of a field. One portion of this he manured with dry cut straw; a second with straw soaked five hours in strong urine; a third soaked in like manner for fifteen hotus; a fourth treated for three days; to the fifth plat he added nothing. The whole dield was plowed alike, sown with grain, and treated alike. The grain product of the first plat was thirty-nine; of the second. fifty ; that of the third sixty-three; of the fourth 126; and of the fifth, that left without manure, only nine of grain. The weight of grain and straw in the several portions in the order as before named, was 100, 120, 300, and 48. The straw undoubt cdly had some mechanical effect, but could have rotted only so partially as to have produced little cffect upon the crop except from its soluble por tion. Thus the wonderful effects of manure from this experiment, was due chiefly from the liquid manure with which the straw was saturated; in the extreme case giving in weight of grain as nine to one hundred and twenty six, or thirteen times; that of straw and grain was as forty-eight to three hundred, or six-and-one-half times. The lesson here taught shows: If manure is worth anything it is worth saving in the best manner possible. In other words, it should not be allowed to lie about the yards and run to waste, as is too often the case, especially in the West. In the West especially upon our ordinary, nary prairie clays and loams, the sooner manure is hauled upon the land the better. It should be
applied to corn, potatoes and other gross feeding crops, in its green state, and, principally from the reason, that thus we get the full benefit, both of its mechanical effects upon the soil through decay, while at the same time it is giving up its soluble properties to the crops tilled. When green, also, it contains a minimum amount of water, and consequently is lighter to haul than when soaked to its full capacity with water. Still again, it has given but little if any of its fertilizing properties to the air, through heating, which always ensues to a greater or less degree when vegetable substances are saturated with moisture. In locations unlike the West, where the necessity of manure is paramount; where sheds and buildings for saving it are used, and where the manipulations attending its mixing and fitting are intricate and expensive, rnuch art is bestowed in scientific handling and its preparation. What would he good practice and economical there, would be the reverse here. Nevertheless, manure is far too valuable any where to be wa,sted; and hence good and careful cultivators everywhere are careful to keep and apply all that is made. This should always be remembered. About the only cost of manure in the West is the hauling and spreading on the field. However rich the soil it will well repay the cost of adding rnanure to the meadow, the corn field and other crops which are greedy for manure. However rich the soil, unless reinforced, it is surely becoming poorer and poorer each year it is cropped. So, the farmer who constantly takes from it and adds nothing, in the end, finds himself with an impoverished farm, that costs more to bring back to a state of fertility, than it would have cost to keep it so originally.