A great variety of matters may of course be employed for making or mixing with peat composts; but there are comparatively few which allow of extensive and economical use, and our notice will be confined to these. First of all, the composting of peat with _animal manures_ deserves attention. Its advantages may be summed up in two statements. 1.--It is an easy and perfect method of economizing all such manures, even those kinds most liable to loss by fermentation, as night soil and horse dung; and, 2.--It develops most fully and speedily the inert fertilizing qualities of the peat itself. Without attempting any explanation of the changes undergone by a peat and manure compost, further than to say that the fermentation which begins in the manure extends to and involves the peat, reducing the whole nearly, if not exactly, to the condition of well-rotted dung, and that in this process the peat effectually prevents the loss of nitrogen as ammonia,--I may appropriately give the practical experience of farmers who have proved in the most conclusive manner how profitable it is to devote a share of time and labor to the manufacture of this kind of compost. _Preparation of Composts with Stable Manure._--The best plan of composting is to have a water tight trench, four inches deep and twenty inches wide, constructed in the stable floor, immediately behind the cattle, and every morning put a bushel-basketful of muck behind each animal. In this way the urine is perfectly absorbed by the muck, while the warmth of the freshly voided excrements so facilitates the fermentative process, that, according to Mr. F. Holbrook, Brattleboro, Vt., who has described this method, _much more muck can thus be well prepared for use_ in the spring, than by any of the ordinary modes of composting. When the dung and muck are removed from the stable, they should be well intermixed, and as fast as the compost is prepared, it should be put into a compact heap, and covered with a layer of muck several inches thick. It will then hardly require any shelter if used in the spring. If the peat be sufficiently dry and powdery, or free from tough lumps, it may usefully serve as bedding, or litter for horses and cattle, as it absorbs the urine, and is sufficiently mixed with the dung in the operation of cleaning the stable. It is especially good in the pig-pen, where the animals themselves work over the compost in the most thorough manner, especially if a few kernels of corn be occasionally scattered upon it. Mr. Edwin Hoyt, of New Canaan, Conn., writes:--"Our horse stables are constructed with a movable floor and pit beneath, which holds 20 loads of muck of 25 bushels per load. Spring and fall, this pit is filled with fresh muck, which receives all the urine of the horses, and being occasionally worked over and mixed, furnishes us annually with 40 loads of the most valuable manure."