age from the fields are fermented under water during three to six months. Wheat and millet are even pulled by the roots and the roots either burned for fuel and the ashes saved or they are fermented in the compost pits. When such material has been thoroughly rotted it is removed from the pit, spread out upon the streets or threshing floor, mixed with soil, repeatedly stirred and turned, thus carrying it through the old process of niter farming until, by the fermentation of the organic matter, nitrates have been formed from the potash, magnesia and lime carbonates in the fuel ashes and in the soil, finally producing a fertilizer rich in humus and highly charged with all of the essential plant food elements in available form, compounded from every possible waste of the field, the ashes of the fuel, the liquid and solid wastes of the home and stable, and soil and subsoil from the field, here again prolonging their allotment of time and compensating for their limited fields by forcing portions of soil and its microscopic life to work between crops and

off the field in elaborating immediately available plant food, which is used, as they say, in "feeding the plants" in contradistinction to manuring the soil.

In the colder provinces of Shantung, Chihli and north into Manchuria, in order to utilize the waste heat from cooking, a long, broad, horizontal flue, upon which beds may be spread, extends from the kitchen through two or more sleeping apartments before it is carried out through the roof. These flues are built out of sun-dried brick made from soil or subsoil mixed with short straw or chaff. The brick are often one foot square and four inches thick, so that a large volume of earth is required for the construction. After two to four years' use these flues, through the decay of the organic matter and shrinkage, become more or less open and the draft defective, so that they must be replaced. But these people have learned that the soil of such brick, after use in the range and flues, is the best possible earth for composting, and so the saving of fuel in securing warmth for the bed at night

and for the apartments by day is at the same time made to do duty in the production of fertilizer for the field, and this may serve as an illustration of one of a thousand ways in which the greatest economy is practiced along so many lines except in the matter of human labor.

A large proportion of this earth compost is rendered air dry and finely pulverized, so that it may be economically and evenly distributed in the field. Sometimes it will be planted in the hills or in the drills with the seed; sometimes it will be sowed in a drill alongside the row and covered in. When we saw it used for sweet potatoes, just ready for transplanting, a shallow furrow was struck through the field with the plow drawn by the donkey-and-cow team. The prepared fertilizer had been drawn to the field and was distributed in piles. Behind the plow a man followed with the fertilizer in a basket, distributing it along the furrow, which was then turned back over the fertilizer, two other furrows turned, forming a ridge, its summit leveled and smoothed

with a hand harrow, and the sweet potatoes transplanted directly above the fertilizer.

The Japanese experiment stations issue instructions as to the best methods of making and caring for compost. In some of the prefectures subsidies are provided from which farmers are paid at the rate of 5 yen, or $2.50, for the preparation of a compost heap on their own places, covering 20 to 40 yards and having the standard height. In other prefectures premiums are offered for the best compost heaps, and committees are appointed to judge and award the pre

miums.

If there is time and favorable moisture conditions for nitrification to occur in the field, the prepared compost may be carried, wet or partially dried, and applied directly to the soil, doing what they call "manuring the land" in contrast with "feeding the plants." It was this practice of highly charging soil rich in lime with organic matter, frequently wetting it with old urine and liquid manure, turning and stirring it to keep it well aerated, that, in olden times,

constituted what was known as niter farming in Europe. Its object was the production of saltpeter or potassium nitrate for the manufacture of gunpowder. But saltpeter is one of the best of plant foods, for it carries both nitrogen and potash in the form most readily assimilated by plants. If lime carbonate is present in the soil rich in organic matter, instead of potassium carbonate, lime nitrate will be formed and this, too, is an available source of nitrogen for plants. This is one of the reasons why soils should be well supplied with lime and why soils rich in lime are so generally fertile.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or repeated too often that the frequent cultivation of a soil rich in humus, rich in lime, potash or magnesium carbonate, and rich in moisture, is in fact niter farming on a fieldwide scale whereby nitrates, which are plant food nitrogen, are produced in the soil. Fitting the rich soil to be planted to corn or potatoes, two or three weeks before the time for planting and then disking or harrowing to save moisture and kill one or two