In short, the watering does all the work of forking over by hand much better and much more cheaply.
Why will the ammonia of manure thus made, not escape if it be used as a top dressing?
What are the advantages of preparing manures in this manner?
What is the profit attending it?
At the end of a month or more, this compost will be ready for use. The layers in the manure will have disappeared, the whole mass having become of a uniform character, highly fertilizing, and ready to be immediately used by plants.
It may be applied to the soil, either as a top-dressing, or otherwise, without fear of loss, as the muck will retain all of the gases which would otherwise evaporate.
The cost and trouble of the foregoing system of composting are trifling compared with its advantages. The quantity of the manure is much increased, and its quality improved. The health of the animals is secured by the retention of those gases, which, when allowed to escape, render impure the air which they have to breathe.
The cleanliness of the stable and yard is much advanced as the effete matters, which would otherwise litter them, are carefully removed to the compost.
As an instance of the profit of composting, it may be stated that Prof. Mapes has decomposed ninety-two cords of swamp muck, with four hundred bushels of the lime and salt mixture, and then composted it with eight cords of fresh horse dung, making one hundred cords of manure fully equal to the same amount of stable-manure alone, which has lain one year exposed to the weather. Indeed one cord of muck well decomposed, and containing the chlorine lime and soda of four bushels of the mixture, is of itself equal in value to the same amount of manure which has lain in an open barn-yard during the heat and rain of one season, and is then applied to the land in a raw or undecomposed state.
In what other manners may muck be used in the preservation of manures?