“I use most of my manure on grass land, and mangels, some on corn and potatoes; but it pays me best, when in proper condition, to apply all I do not need for mangels, on meadow and pasture.
“Forty loads, or about 18 to 20 cords is a homœopathic dose for an acre, and this quantity, or more, applied once in three years to grass land, agrees with it first rate.
“The land where I grow mangels gets about this dose every year.
“I would say that my up-land meadows have been mown twice each year for a great many years.
“I have been using refuse salt from Syracuse, on my mangels, at the rate of about six bushels per acre, applied broadcast in two applications. My hen-manure is pulverized, and sifted through a common coal sieve. The fine I use for dusting the mangels after they have been singled out, and the lumps, if any, are used to warm up the red peppers.
“I have sometimes mixed my hen-manure with dry muck, in the proportion of one bushel of hen-manure to 10 of muck, and received a profit from it too big to tell of, on corn, and on mangels.
“I have sprinkled the refuse salt on my cow-stable floors sometimes, but where all the liquid is saved, I think we have salt enough for most crops.
“I have abandoned the use of plaster on my pastures for the reason that milk produced on green-clover is not so good as that produced on the grasses proper. I use all the wood ashes I can get, on my mangels as a duster, and consider their value greater than the burners do who sell them to me for 15 cts. a bushel. I have never used much lime, and have not received the expected benefits from its use so far. But wood ashes agree with my land as well as manure does. The last question you ask, but one, is this: ‘What is the usual plan of managing manure in the dairy districts?’ The usual method is to cut holes in the sides of the stable, about every ten feet along the whole length of the barn behind the cows, and pitch the manure out through these holes, under the eaves of the barn, where it remains until too much in the way, when it is drawn out and commonly applied to grass land in lumps as big as your head. This practice is getting out of fashion a little now, but nearly one-half of all the cow-manure made in Herkimer Co. is lost, wasted.
“Your last question, ‘What improvement would you suggest,’ I answer by saying it is of no use to make any to these men, it would be wasted like their manure.
“The market value of manure in this county is 50 cts. per big load, or about one dollar per cord.”