“TIM BUNKER” ON THE VALUE OF MUCK.

Marlborough Express, Volume V, Issue 268, 31 December 1870, Page 7

“TIM BUNKER” ON THE VALUE OF MUCK.

[From the 'Farmer.'] “ H ain’t jougob most tired on’t, Squire asked Jones, as I carted along my twentieth load of mud last night. “ Guess not. Why 1” T replied. “ It’s a mighty deal of hard work for nothing. I’d just as leeves have as many loads of snow banks in my barn-yard.” “ It’s all moonshine about there’s bein’ any vartu in muck, I’d jest as soon dung a field with icicles,” chimed in Tucker, who gets his ideas and his drinks from Jones. “ Them’s my sentiments exactly,” said Jake Frink, as he met us on the road, with a load of oats in bags, going down to Shadtown to market. “ You see, I was overpersuaded one year, when the Squire bo’t the horse-pond field, to try some of the mud that come out of the side of the road, where the pond used to be. I guess I carted a dozen load, and thought I was going to see corn stalk as big as your wrist, and ears as long as a hoe-handle. And I du declare I never could see a bit o’ difference where I used it.” “ How much manure did you put on to the acre 1” inquired Seth Twiggs, as he drew a lucifer across the top of his boot, and lighted his inevitable pipe. “ Wall, I made a whoppin sight that year, and slapped her on ten loads to the acre.” “ Corn must have been skeered at such duin’s, I guess,” said Seth, with a twinkle in his eye that the smoke could not hide. “ Corn didn’t come up well, did it V’ asked Seth, pursuing his catechising. “ Wall, yes, it came up, but looked mighty yaller, and didn’t begin to grow much till into June, and then it was spindlin, and a great many stalks didn’t have any ears on ’em. It was that cold frog mud that pizened the sile. “ How much corn du you get to the acre, take it by and large, Mr. Frink I” asked Seth, civilly. “ I guess about twenty bushels, on an average, and sometimes a little more—and sometimes less.” “ And how much manure do you put on to the acre 1 ?” continued Seth, determined to get to the bottom of the matter. “ Wall, that is jest as it happens. I allers put on all I make, be it more or less, p’raps fifty or sixty loads on to eight or

nine acres of plantim it’s real dung, though, and none of you'r bog moss and stuff, ”

“And how do you suppose Squire Bunker gits eighty bushels of coin to the acre/’

“ Wall, his land aliens was better than mine ; and then he has more cattle to make more manure, and he buys lots of guanner and bone dust, and all the ashes folks makes in the village, and sets every boy

that’s big enough to run on tew legs to pick up bones, and buys every dead boss, and rotten sheep, and murdered cat, shoemakers’ pairins’, old boots, dead hens, old rags, and feathers, sticks ’em into this muck, and makes manure. If a man has money ’miff to buy carrion, he can make manure and make crops, but ye see it costs more than it comes to. And then, who wants to be runnin an opposition line to the crows ? The Squire is great on dead bosses, depend on’t. The crows haven’t, had a meal of vittles the last five years, the Squire’s been so spry after every ded critter.”

Jack Frink touched up his nag, and disappeared rather suddenly after this display of his philosophy of big crops. There was of course some foundation in truth for his reflection upon my methods of making manure. But neighbour Frink displayed his own pride, as well as my humiliation, in his remarks. One would hardly think it, but Jack Frink is ‘ r’eally above his business, and is ashamed to do what ought to be done, to make the most of the materials within his reach to enrich his stores of manure. You see, this digging mud is a nasty business. You must soil your boots, and your shirtsleeves, and a splash of mud upon your shirt bosom is not uncommon. And the handling of dead horses and other diseased animals is not particularly savoury. But then if a man is going to be a farmer, he mustn’t faint at the sight of such things, or carry a smelling bottle to keep down the stenches. Muck makes clean corn, yellow as gold, and the sweetest of flour, and all offal and putrid flesh iu the laboratory of the soil is turned into luxuriant grass, which makes nice milk, cheese, and butter, and plenty of it. Being a fanner, and “ nothing else,” as the boys say, I go in for muck and more of it every year.

You gentlemen that edit agricultural papers, attend the shows, and see almost nobody but the best fanners, who carry out your teachings, think the world is almost converted to your faith. You have been preaching about muck for fifty years or more, and you may think that everybody understands it, and everybody uses it as much as they ought to. You never made a greater mistake in the world. I tell you the Millennium has not come yet, by a long shot. I guess one-half the farmers in these parts to-day have got Jake Frink’s notion about muck, and it rests upon his sort of trial—a single experiment based on the application of ten loads of half-made compost to the acre. No wonder that muck is considered poor stuff.

Now, I am ready to give a reason for the taith that is in me. On my old land I cannot make any money at farming without manure, and carting muck is the cheapest way I can make it. Indeed, I should not know what to do without muck. If manure is valuable to the farmer who has to cart it several miles, it is certainly worth as much, or more, to the farmer who makes it and uses it upon his own farm. On the muck that I am able to cure on the fields where I use it, I make a large profit, as I save one carting. This I cure with stable manure that I buy from the village, and with fish, dead animals, guano, or with lime and ashes, taking care not to use these latter articles with tin; animal manures. If anybody doubts about my estimate of muck, let him come, to Hookertown and see ray corn bin and porkers, my root store and cows, and my hay mows and horse stable. Jake Flink despises a dead horse and invokes crows. 1 think the carcase worth money, and save it. There is as much difference in folks as in anythink.—Yours to command, Timothy Bunker, Esq.