The Compost Heap

In forming the compost heap it is not absolutely essential tbat we should have any inanure to start the pile in fertnentation. A dead horse or other animal, or some refuse pieces of skin trom a tanneiv, or sizing from a paper-mill, or the refuse of a glue factory, or the gweepinga of a woolen-mill, wül have the saine effect on the compost as the manure. All animal matter, with the exception of wool, ha ir, and bones, decays rapidly during the summer, and imparts the same tendency to every organized substance with which it may come in contact. Even woolen waste, which alone would decompose slowly, is generally so saturatcd with oil, a highly carbonaceous and consequently inflamm iblc substance, ' h it itheal s up tlie compostheap admirably. A spontaneous combustión goos on in tbe pile, which speedily reduces the whole into a good oondition for top dressing. If a few bushels of wood-ashes, say five or six, can be added to a cord of compost, made of muck and wool waste, or sizing, or some such matter full of ammonia, we dosire no better top-dressing. If neither animal inanure, nor dead animal matter of any kind, n'sh and rlesh included, can be obtainttd to set the compost heap in fermentation and furnish it with ammouia, then use the soap-snds from the laundry and the slops from Ihe kitchen and the chamber. There are few things that will put a compost heap on tho road to putrefaction better than the refuse water of the laundry. This contains. besides soarj, the filth. of clothes, which have received the exhalations from tho pores of the skin, and is really ricn in effete animal matter. Poured around the house, as it too often is, it produces one of the worst smells imaginable ; put upon cucumber or grapevines it gives a most luxuriant growth ; but the best place tbr this water, and, indeed, all the slops of the house, is the compost heap, wli6re all the rich gases generated by its fermentation will be retained, and will aid in decomposing much other organic matter. - A. ihde, in New York Timet.