E. M. Shelton.
LETTER FROM PROF. W. H. BREWER, PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE IN SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF YALE COLLEGE.
Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College,
New Haven, Conn., April 14th, 1876.
Joseph Harris, Esq., Rochester, N.Y.:
My Dear Sir.—I have made inquiries relating to “the price of stable-manure in New Haven, and how far the farmers and gardeners haul it, etc.” I have not been to the horse-car stables, but I have to several livery stables, and they are all essentially the same.
They say that but little is sold by the cord or ton, or by any weight or measure. It is sold either “in the lump,” “by the month,” “by the year,” or “per horse.” Some sell it at a given sum per month for all their horses, on a general estimate of their horses—thus, one man says, “I get, this year, $25 per month for all my manure, he to remove it as fast as it accumulates; say one, two, or three times per week. He hauls it about five miles and composts it all before using.”
Another says, he sells per horse. “I get, this year, $13 per horse, they to haul it.” The price per horse ranges from $10 to $15 per year, the latter sum being high.
From the small or private stables, the manure is generally “lumped” by private contract, and is largely used about the city. It is hauled sometimes as much as 10 miles, but usually much less.
But the larger stables often sell per shipment—it is sent by cars up the Connecticut Valley to Westfield, etc., where it is often hauled several miles from the railroad or river.
Much manure is sent by boat from New York to the Connecticut Valley tobacco lands. Boats (“barges”) are even loaded in Albany, go down the Hudson, up the Sound to Connecticut, to various places near Hartford, I am told. Two or three years ago, a man came here and exhibited to us pressed masses of manure—a patent had been taken out for pressing it, to send by R.R. (stable manure). I never heard anything more about it—and he was confident and enthusiastic about it.