Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1858 — Wastes of the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Wastes of the Farm.

So much is now said in agricultural journals about the wasting of manure that it is having a perceptiblcri-ofluence upon the practice of farmers in all part.? ot -the countrv. Barn-cellars for the preservation of manure arc now the order of tho day. No farmer who takes the papers, or observe? what is going on around him, thinks ol building a new barn without setting it upon a side-hill, or in some place where he can have a ma-nure-cellar underneath. The worth of muck and absorbents is beginning to he understood. But there are other wastes, quite as valuable, that are still overlooked. If a farmer loses a s’neep, or cow, or hog, or horse from disease, the dead bodies are very likely drawn into a swamp, or distant pasture, and there left as food lor crows. This is a great waste of a much more valuable fertilizer than stable-manure. A dead horse or cow is worth at least five dollars for the compost-heap, and with labor and inuck, to save ils gases, it will be worth twice as much before it reaches the field. The amount of'muck a dead horse will charge with ammonical gas and their fertilizers is truly astonishing. Dana thinks twenty loads pf good manure may be made from ono animal. He is not wide of the mark, if the heap bo properly treated. The dead animal need not be carried to a distance. With six or eight cords of muck the work may go on in your garden without disturbing any one’s olfactories. Labor spent in saving those wastes will be richly rewarded.