Abstract

In the village of Eppothuvendran, a black soil dry village between Ettiyapuram and Tuticorin, I came across an excellent practice of making compost. There was a depression in the ground some distance from the village where silt from the adjoining lands accumulates in the rainy season. This silt was at the time of my visit heing removed. It was still quite wet. A layer about 9" thick was spread on the ground in a neat rectangular area. On this, a layer of ordinary cattle manure about 4" thick was evenly spread. This was again covered with a layer of wet silt on which cattle manure was again spread. Alternate layers of silt and cattle manure were then built up. One compost stack which was being built was about 5 feet high. I enquired the reason why this system was adpoted in preference to the usual system of keeping the cattle manure in a pit and periodically covering it with silt and was given the very sound explantion that there was no silt available near the village and as the manure was mixed with silt in the proportions of about one to three, this saved considerably in carting, especially as the manure was to be used in lands distant from the village.

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