It remained for the present owner to open this mine, and most effectually he has done it. From the closest figuring of the amount he has taken year by year, and the quantity applied per acre, we conclude that about ten thousand cords of muck have been taken since the purchase of the island ten years ago, and much the largest portion within the six years that Doctor Grant has been actively operating.

As this muck is not in good condition to use as it comes from the marsh, the following plan has been adopted for cheaply making a most valuable compost. The hay of the marsh is carefully saved by stacking it upon platforms, on the soft part, until the frost makes a bridge, and from the part where a team can travel it is brought at once to the barn and stacked. A large portion of that cut from the driest part is excellent hay, from a jointed grass, and all but the very coarsest is greedily eaten by cattle. But a stock sufficient for its consumption cannot be kept on the island, but it can be obtained from the mountains in any quantity, to board five months at $i to $1 50 a month, and so some 60 or 70 head of young cattle are taken in every winter for the purpose, not so much for disposing of the hay, as for obtaining a cheap solvent for the muck, which their droppings furnish.

From the driest portion of the marsh, a sufficient portion of muck is dug in summer to spread a foot deep or more over the extensive barn-yard, and this being covered with a thick coat of coarse grass is ready for the winter. If the tramping of the cattle work up mud, it is covered up with more waste hay, so that the animals have a dry bed all the time, and here the portion that are not stabled, spend the winter, water being provided in the yard.

Muck is also spread in all the stables, and absorbs all liquids, and during the winter a great mass of it is dug and hauled from the marsh to the yards and stables, or in piles for future use. In the spring the contents of the yard, some two or three feet deep, are not at once removed, but suffered to remain till a convenient time during the summer, and until so much decayed as to make the work of handling easier, and then this great mass of rich manure is overhauled and carried to convenient spots, and stacked up for future application to the land.

Whoever saw this place in the occupancy of its former owner, saw that the surface had been slightly scratched over, and what was called soil was not in a condition to produce any thing but the scantiest crops, and of fruits it had next to none. Below the soil there was a compact mass of gravelly 1oam, sufficiently clayey to be productive if allowed a chance, and sufficiently loose when broken up, to require very little under-draining. Only in one spot where the water-shed brings the course of the natural drainage down to a rock dyke, and thus to the surface, has tile draining been found particularly advantageous.

Like hundreds of other farms, in all these hard-featured granitic counties of Southern New York, this had long been called "worn out" a term as inappropriate when applied to a farm as it would be to the walls of the Palisades. This is evident to whoever sees it now, for he will see a pulverulent soil of two to three feet deep; the sand, gravel, and clay, homogeneous with an abundance of vegetable matters, making a dark, friable, highly productive, and easily worked soil, requiring very little annual outlay of labor or fertilization to keep it in the most perfect working order. It is now in a condition to give back a profitable return upon the original cost, and all the expense of improvement, and the labor of cultivation.

And this has mainly been effected by muck - nothing but muck, just like the inexhaustible supply upon half the farms in this part of the State. It is true, that at the commencement of operations, sundry sloop loads of animal manure, salt, lye, lime, plaster, and the waste of manufactures of various things, were brought to the island, but these were all adjuncts of the muck, to aid in its decomposition, or to be used as immediate fertilizers while that was preparing, as it is not considered profitable to apply it in its raw state; but after it has lain six or eight months in the cattle yard, and has then been piled and lain some months longer, the whole mass is considered more valuable for manure than it would be if composed entirely of cattle droppings. In fact, the addition of any animal substance to muck, has an effect not unlike the addition of yeast to flour, and the fermentation and decomposition is hastened by such an addition in about the same proportion as the fermentation of the moistened flour by the yeast. And as bread is greatly improved by the process of kneading, so is the muck by a similar process: the more it is stirred, the better it becomes, and its lasting effects in the soil are remarkable.

Its effects in the soil of this once almost sterile island, are not only remarkable, but sufficient to satisfy the most sceptical farmer that its use would be profitable.

As soon as possible after the purchase of the island, ten acres of ground were prepared for a pear orchard, though not as well prepared as the Doctor would now prepare before planting, and the consequence has been, that the labor of deep trenching and thoroughly mixing the soil and compost two to three feet deep, has been done in a great measure since the trees were planted, at a great additional cost of labor.

"No pear orchard should be planted" says Doctor Grant, "until the land is trenched two to three feet deep, and thoroughly worked up and mixed with compost; and if inclined to be wet, perfectly tile-drained; and then there is not the least difficulty in producing great crops of the richest kinds of pears grown in this country".

In proof of this we witnessed as fine a display of fruit as we ever saw upon so young an orchard. The trees not only hung full - too full for any but land in the very best condition - but the fruit was large and all of excellent appearance, and such as was then in condition for eating, we can attest was excellent in flavor. In short, its richness showed the high state of culti-vation of the trees. All the fruits of muck and deep tillage. Reader, have you ever thought that you can not produce rich fruit upon poor soil? That you need "fat pasture" to make fat pears, just as much as you need " fat pasture to make fat calves? "

Doctor Grant has now in bearing upwards of a hundred kinds of pears, nearly all of which he has proved worthy of cultivation, either as standards or dwarf, and some of them as both.

"But, Doctor" we said to him, after spending some hours in the pear orchard, " men in ordinary circumstances can not, or at least will not, plant trees of a hundred sorts. A farmer might grow five; a retired citizen, with a taste for horticulture, would not exceed twenty; and if one could get an assortment of summer, autumn, and winter, by planting trees of twenty sorts, the probability is that ten would grow pears where one would if he had to plant a hundred. Now let us make up such a list, as we walk about among them, with a few notes upon the character of each, from which an amateur can judge how each is suited to his particular wants. Such a list, that can be depended upon better than some nurseryman's recommendation, will have a tendency to increase the cultivation of this valuable fruit".

[Ihe Doctor and Mr. Robinson continued their walk, and made out the proposed list of pears, which we have already given to our readers. One more article from Mr. R. will "finish up," we suppose, Iona Island. We would direct special attention to Dr. Grant's mode of using muck. A bed of this material is as valuable as a mine to the man who may be so fortunate as to possess it. - Ed].