We should either draw it directly to the field and use it, or we should make it into a compact heap, where it will not receive more rain than is needed to keep it moist. One reason for piling manure, therefore, is to preserve it from loss, until we wish to use it on the land. “We all admit that,” said the Deacon, “but is there anything actually gained by fermenting it in the heap?”--In one sense, no; but in another, and very important sense, yes. When we cook corn-meal for our little pigs, we add nothing to it. We have no more meal after it is cooked than before. There are no more starch, or oil, or nitrogenous matters in the meal, but we think the pigs can digest the food more readily. And so, in fermenting manure, we add nothing to it; there is no more actual nitrogen, or phosphoric acid, or potash, or any other ingredient after fermentation than there was before, but these ingredients are rendered more soluble, and can be more rapidly taken up by the plants. In this sense, therefore, there is a great gain. One thing is certain, we do not, in many cases, get anything like as much benefit from our manure as the ingredients it contains would lead us to expect. Mr. Lawes, on his clayey soil at Rothamsted, England, has grown over thirty crops of wheat, year after year, on the same land. One plot has received 14 tons of barn-yard manure per acre every year, and yet the produce from this plot is no larger, and, in fact, is frequently much less, than from a few hundred pounds of artificial manure containing far less nitrogen. For nineteen years, 1852 to 1870, some of the plots have received the same manure year after year. The following shows the _average_ yield for the nineteen years: _Wheat _Straw per acre._ per acre._ Plot 5.--Mixed mineral manure, alone 17 bus. 15 cwt. ” 6.--Mixed mineral manure, and 200 lbs. ammoniacal salts 27 bus. 25 cwt. ” 7.--Mixed mineral manure, and 400 lbs. ammoniacal salts 36 bus. 36 cwt. ” 9.--Mixed mineral manure, and 550 lbs. nitrate of soda 37 bus. 41 cwt. ” 2.--14 tons farm-yard dung 36 bus. 34 cwt. The 14 tons (31,360 lbs.) of farm-yard manure contained about 8,540 lbs. organic matter, 868 lbs. mineral matter, and 200 lbs. nitrogen. The 400 lbs. of ammoniacal salts, and the 550 lbs. nitrate of soda, each contained 82 lbs. of nitrogen; and it will be seen that this 82 lbs. of nitrogen produced as great an effect as the 200 lbs. of nitrogen in barn-yard manure.