Now, instead of spreading it all over the basin, we commenced a small heap on one of the sloping sides of the basin; with a horse and cart we drew to this heap, just as winter set in, every bit of manure that could be found on the premises, and everything that would make manure. When got all together, it made a heap seven or eight feet wide, twenty feet long, and three or four feet high. We then laid planks on the heap, and every day, as the pig-pens, cow and horse stables were cleaned out, the manure was wheeled on to the heap and shaken out and spread about. The heap soon commenced to ferment, and when the cold weather set in, although the sides and some parts of the top froze a little, the inside kept quite warm. Little chimneys were formed in the heap, where the heat and steam escaped. Other parts of the heap would be covered with a thin crust of frozen manure. By taking a few forkfuls of the latter, and placing them on the top of the “chimneys,” they checked the escape of steam, and had a tendency to distribute the heat to other parts of the heap. In this way the fermentation became more general throughout all the mass, and not so violent at any one spot. “But why be at all this trouble?”--For several reasons. First. It saves labor in the end. Two hours’ work, in winter, will save three hours’ work in the spring. And three hours’ work in the spring is worth more than four hours’ work in the winter. So that we save half the expense of handling the manure. 2d. When manure is allowed to lie scattered about over a large surface, it is liable to have much of its value washed out by the rain. In a compact heap of this kind, the rain or snow that falls on it is not more than the manure needs to keep it moist enough for fermentation. 3d. There is as much fascination in this fermenting heap of manure as there is in having money in a savings bank. One is continually trying to add to it. Many a cart-load or wheel-barrowful of material will be deposited that would otherwise be allowed to run to waste. 4th. The manure, if turned over in February or March, will be in capital order for applying to root crops; or if your hay and straw contains weed-seeds, the manure will be in good condition to spread as a top-dressing on grass-land early in the spring. This, I think, is better than keeping it in the yards all summer, and then drawing it out on the grass land in September. You gain six months’ or a year’s time. You get a splendid growth of rich grass, and the red-root seeds will germinate next September just as well as if the manure was drawn out at that time. If the manure is drawn out early in the spring, and spread out immediately, and then harrowed two or three times with a Thomas’ smoothing-harrow, there is no danger of its imparting a rank flavor to the grass. 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.