[APPENDIX.]
LETTER FROM EDWARD JESSOP, YORK, PA.
York, Pa., March 16, 1876.
Joseph Harris, Esq., Moreton Farm, Rochester, N.Y.:
Dear Sir—Your favor of the 22d of last month came safely to hand, and I am truly obliged to you for the reply to my question.—You ask, can I help you with facts or suggestions, on the subject of manure? I fear not much; but it may be useful to you to know what others need to know. I will look forward to the advent of “Talks on Manures” with much interest, hoping to get new light on a subject second to none in importance to the farmer.
I have done a little at composting for some years, and am now having a pile of about forty cords, made up of stable-manure and earth taken from the wash of higher lands, turned and fined. The labor of digging and hauling the earth, composting in thin layers with manure, turning, and fining, is so great, I doubt whether it pays for most farm crops—this to be used for mangel-wurzel and market-garden.
The usual plan in this county is to keep the stable-manure made during winter, and the accumulation of the summer in the barn-yard, where it is soaked by rain, and trampled fine by cattle, and in August and September is hauled upon ground to be seeded with wheat and grass-seeds. I do not think there is much piling and turning done.
My own conclusions, not based on accurate experiments, however, are, that the best manure I have ever applied was prepared in a covered pit on which cattle were allowed to run, and so kept well tramped—some drainage into a well, secured by pouring water upon it, when necessary, and the drainage pumped and distributed over the surface, at short intervals, particularly the parts not well tramped, and allowed to remain until it became a homogeneous mass, which it will do without having undergone so active a fermentation as to have thrown off a considerable amount of gas.