Mainsail

“ Flesh.—The flesh of all animals is useful as a manure, and is especially distinguished by the rapidity with which it undergoes decomposition, and yields up its valuable matters to the plant. It is rarely employed in its natural state, but horse flesh was at one time converted into a dry and portable manure, although, I understand, this manufacture is not now prosecuted. ”

“ A good liquid manure is made by putting a barrowful of fresh cow manure into a large barrel, a big wine pipe is the thing; add soft water to thin it, put in a bag of soot, and fill up with rain-water. ”

“ Make some gruel of red millet, and give to it.’
But his wife stared and said: ‘Oh, master, do you tell her to make the gazelle gruel out of red millet, which a horse would not eat? Eh, master, that is not well.’
But he answered, ‘Oh, you are mad! Rice is only kept for people.’
‘Eh, master, this is not like a gazelle. It is the apple of your eye. ”

“ This outer covering repels the rain, the snow, and the wind like a coat of mail, thus fitting the Merino to endure exposure beyond any other sheep. On opening the crust, the wool is found of a brilliant, golden hue, sparkling with yolk, and firmly held together in masses, hardly distinguishable from the cocoon of the silk-worm. The wool closely covers every part of the body, and frequently the entire legs and head, excepting a part of the face. ”

“ Vegetable mould (that is, leaves thoroughly decayed and mixed with a little rich loam) is admirably adapted for manuring the finer kinds of flowers, and plants in pots. There are many other kinds of manure used in gardens occasionally; such as the dung of pigs, rabbits and poultry, grass mown from lawns, parings of leather, horn shavings, bones, the sweeping of streets, the emptying of privies, cess-pools, and sewers, the clipping of hedges and pruning of trees, weeds, the refuse of vegetables, pea halm, &c. ”

“ Clean up all the stubble, haulm, straw, leaves, refuse brush, sticks and rubbish of every sort, and cast it out, or burn it and distribute the ashes. If you intend to do your work in the best manner, see that you have the sorts of manure that you may need through the season: ashes, fine old barn-yard manure, green long manure, leaf-mold from the wood, top-soil from pastures, etc., etc. Every florist understands the use of these. ”

“ The raw material from which the manure is manufactured consists of wheat, barley, rye, and oat-straw, corn-stalks, corn-fodder, clover and timothy-hay, clover seed-hay, bean-straw, pea-straw, potato-tops, mangel-wurzel, turnips, rape, and mustard. These are all raised on the farm; and, in addition to the home-grown oats, peas, and corn, we buy and feed out considerable quantities 84 of bran, shorts, fine-middlings, malt-combs, corn-meal, and a little oil-cake. I sell wheat, rye, barley, and clover-seed, apples, and potatoes, and sometimes cabbages and turnips. ”

“ When a tree is manured, remember that the ends only of the roots take up nourishment, and that the ends of the roots are not found close by the trunk. We often see heaps of manure piled about the trunk, and the ends of the roots are three yards or more distant from it. You might as well put your fodder down at your cattle’s hind legs, and wonder that they did not get fat on it. Treat your trees as you do your stock—put their food where their mouths are. Young orchards are better without stimulating manure. ”

“ Rape Dust.—It is from the straw of the corn-bearing plants, or from the stems and leaves of the grasses, that the largest portion of the strictly vegetable manures applied to the soil is generally obtained or prepared. But the seeds of all plants are much more enriching than the substance of their leaves and stems. These seeds, however, are in general too valuable for food to admit of their application as a manure. ”

“ It is probable that on different soils the returns obtained by the use of these several manures may not be always in the same order, yet, generally speaking, it will always be found that blood, night-soil, and sheep, horse, and pigeon’s dung, are among the most enriching manures that can be employed. ”

“ You have two rows of cabbage in the garden, and you water one row, and the plants grow bigger and better. Is water manure? You cover a plant with a hand-glass, and it grows bigger and better. Is a hand-glass manure? You shelter a few plants, and they grow bigger and better. Is shelter manure? You put some pure sand round a few plants, and they grow bigger and better. Is pure sand manure? I think we shall have to reject the Deacon’s definition. ”

“ The time being proper, you sever the branch on which you find the buds to your liking. Take this with you to the stock that you are going to bud, holding the branch in your left hand, the largest end downward; make a sloping cut from about an inch and a half below the bud to about an inch above it, suffering your knife to go through the bark, and about half way into the wood, cutting out wood and all. ”

“ When I had what I deemed sufficient I took the nail I had before used to open the meat-can with, and which I kept in my pocket, and commenced to bring its end to a sharp point by grinding it upon a soft pebble that lay beside me, and having brought it to a point I went to work and unlaid about a fathom of my manilla rope, and, taking the edge of a clam-shell, sawed off one of the strands, and from that I selected a few threads, which I laid up again into a good strong twine. ”

“ XLVIII. A corn plant consists of a culm bearing at its head a spike, which, when it is not mutilated, has, as in barley and wheat, three parts, namely: the grain, the glume and the beard, not to speak of the sheath which contains the spike while it is being formed. The grain is that solid interior part of the spike, the glume is its hull and the beard those long thin needles which grow out of the glume. Thus as the glume is the pontifical robe of the grain, the beard is its apex. ”

“ If the horns of young cattle be smeared with hot wax, you may mold them to any shape you please, and cattle are less subject to disease of the hoof if you smear the horny parts with wax, pitch, or olive oil. ”

“ The four-sided ear, in which the still tender grains lie scale-like over each other, hangs its blossom out like tiny flags wherever a grainlet lies in its cradle, which flutter and tremble without ceasing, while the high stalk rocks thoughtfully to and fro. ”

“ If there is a frost during this settling, that will do it the greatest possible good.
Let the amateur avoid all artificial manures at first save a dusting of basic slag (see Chap. XI) ; for there is no need whatever in preparing a new rose bed to use any manure except sweet stable and cow manure. ”

“ In weather not employed about other labor more important, manure and trim all kinds of vines and fruit-trees, except the orange tribe. Transplant evergreens and other trees, sweet briers, honeysuckles, jasmines, &c.; sow late peas and beans, and set out onions for seed; set all hands at work in cleaning up for other crops, picking up limbs, grubbing, cleaning up hollows, sides of bayous, cutting down corn-stalks with hoes, gathering materials for making manure, &c., &c. ”

“ Manure produced by the sheep, goats, and other cattle on the hills, is ploughed in to nourish the soil. This manure is very light and friable, and no straw is mixed with it. The allowance is a mule-load to a full-grown tree, and half a mule-load to a smaller tree. ”

“ In horticulture, it is recommended as an excellent manure, when poured in spring on the roots of fruit-trees, having previously removed the soil round the trunk: thus employed, it promotes the growth of the tree, and enriches its fruit. ”

“ Surface of the Body.—When a horse is in a good condition and well cared for, the coat is short, fine, glossy and smooth and the skin pliable and elastic. Healthy cattle have a smooth, glossy coat and the skin feels mellow and elastic. The fleece of sheep should appear smooth and have plenty of yolk, the skin pliable and light pink in color. When the coat loses its lustre and gloss and the skin becomes hard, rigid, thickened and dirty, it indicates a lack of nutrition and an unhealthy condition of the body. ”

“ Many jobs, such as thinning out small things, pruning and nailing, cannot be properly done in gloves. When working among wet vegetables, they only make the hands cold, and encourage chilblains. Hands will wash, but it is as well to be provided with a bottle of nail-cleaning fluid, a box of orange sticks, and a little cotton wool. A hand nail brush must not be used, but soap and water should be vigorously applied. ”

“ The subject you have undertaken is truly a difficult one. The circumstances of a grain-raiser and a dairyman are so unlike, that their views in regard to the treatment of the manure produced on the farm would vary as greatly as the lines of farming they follow. ”

“ Farm-yard manure consists of the mixed dung of horses and cattle thrown together, and more or less soaked with liquid drainings of the stable or byre. It is no doubt the finest stimulant for the growth of plants, and that most adapted to restore the fertile elements which the plants have abstracted from exhausted soils. This manure is best fitted for garden use when in a moderately fermented state. ”

“ The nature of the herbage growing on pasture is very much influenced by the manure applied. This, indeed, is one of the most noteworthy features connected with the manuring of grass, and has been especially observed in the Rothamsted experiments, where the influence of the different manures on the various kinds of herbage has been investigated with great care. The herbage constituting pasture is, as every farmer knows, of a varied description. We have in pastures a mixture of plants belonging both to the gramineous and leguminous classes, as well as a variety of weeds. ”

“ Of the twenty plots into which this land is divided, two were left without manure from the outset, two received ordinary farmyard manure for a series of years, whilst the remainder each received a different description of artificial or chemical manure, the same being, except in special cases, applied year after year on the same plot. During the growing season the field affords striking evidence of the influence of different manurial dressings. ”

“ A man may keep his manure in store. Rabbi Maier “forbade it till he sink it three handbreadths, or till he raise it three.” If he have only a little, he may increase it and proceed in his work. Rabbi Eleazar, the son of Azariah, “forbade it till he sink the manure three handbreadths, or raise it three, or till he place it on a rock.”
4. “He who stables his cattle in his field?” “He may make a pen twice fifty cubits square. He may remove three sides and leave the middle one. It follows that he has a stable four times fifty cubits square.” ”

“ A day or two more, and the shell and husk, which, in the last and germinating stage of the nut, are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any impression, spontaneously burst by some force within; and, henceforth, the hardy young plant thrives apace; and needing no culture, pruning, or attention of any sort, rapidly advances to maturity. ”

“ I know from repeated trials that when part of a pasture is top-dressed, cows and sheep will keep it much more closely cropped down than the part which has not been manured. The idea to the contrary originated from not spreading the manure evenly. ”

“ I have no doubt that it is true, as stated by those who have made the experiment, that the flour of wheat, raised on a cultivated soil recently dressed with crude, stable manure, may readily be distinguished by its odor, from the flour of wheat raised on a new and undepraved soil, or from that raised on a cultivated soil which has been dressed with properly digested manure. ”

“ In the highlands of Scotland, we are informed that young branches of the alder, cut down in the summer, spread over the fields, and left during the winter to decay, are found to answer the purpose of manure. The fresh gathered leaves, being covered with a glutinous moisture, are said to be sometimes strewed upon floors to destroy fleas, which become entangled in it, as birds are with bird-lime. ”

“ We have fed such hay to our cows and horses, and have usually worked into manure the corn-stalks of about 20 acres of good corn, each winter, and we have worked all the straw into shape to apply as manure that we could, spreading it thickly on pastures and such other fields as were convenient. ”

“ A layer of manure one or two feet in thickness should be covered all over with six inches of dry earth, ashes, and mineral rubbish; upon this another layer of manure may be placed, and then again a layer of earth, and so forth, until the whole of the manure is stacked; it should be covered all over with a continuous layer of earth of from six inches to one foot in thickness. If the manure heap or yard manure cannot be shifted, it may be covered on the spot with a layer of dry earth, after which all animals are to be kept away from it. ”

“ The fibres of the vegetable kind, most commonly applied to this purpose, are the bark of several kinds of trees, together with hemp, flax, and cotton; and those of the animal kingdom are, silk, the wool of the sheep and lama, and the hair, or wool, of the goat and camel. ”

“ They then place their bows and arrows across their thighs, and each holds a leaf: at the same time a third person, holding a pot of oil or butter, makes an incision above their knees, and requires each to put his blood on the other's leaf, and mix a little oil with it, when each anoints himself with the brother-salve. ”