£$4 0N MANURES. 



XIV. 



An Essay on Manures. By Arthur Young, F. It, £. 

 ( Concluded from p. 1 Q6J 



7. Yard and Stable Dung. 



Thing u5u.il!y JL T has been a common notion, till very lately, both with 



eotleUtfd in termers and writers on agriculture, that dung is to be aeeu-. 



mulated on liills or receptacles for a longer or shorter time, 



till fermentation and putrefaction have brought it, after few 



or many months, and few or many operations of turning or 



mixing, to a certain state, in which it is ready and proper for 



applying to land. 



But it is some- But there is another system of management, which of late 



time* used h as attracted a good deal of attention: and this is, to use it 

 iresh : . . 



fresh as made, if this method be right, no instructions for 



the management of dunghills are necessary, since we ought 



to have no dunghills. 



and this i<s Hasssenfratz observes, "The management of the farmers 



referable, ac- if m p\ t ^ YC }y \ s highly advantageous, in continually carrying 



ablest che> " their dung to their land, rather than leaving it to be ex- 



(PMfts, c< hausted in their farm yard, in order to be carried out at 



" a fixed period. By applying the dung quite fresh to the 



*f land, its first fermentation is employed iu heating the 



" soil. The little alkali it contains, instead of being dis- 



" solved in the farm yard, and carried off by rain, remains 



" in the land, and improves it, if alkali be useful to vege- 



" tation. The straw, yet entire, better divides the soil ; it* 



*f fermentation proceeds less rapidly, and is less advauced 



*.' when the seed is sown; and consequently the dung is in 



". a better state for furnishing a great quantity of carbonic 



• 4 acid, which hitherto appears to be, with water, the prin- 



" ciple aliment of plants." 



Dr. Darwin asks a very interesting question. " Do the 



s " recrements of vegetable and' animal bodies, buried a few 



** inches beneath the soil, undergo the same decomposition, 



" as when laid on heaps in farm yards ?" He conceives they 



