ME. JOHN JUST ON FAULTS IN FARMING. 95 



and grievous as they are in themselves, and detrimental to 

 the community at large, no one is more injurious to them 

 than the reckless waste and extravagant expenditure of the 

 manures, and means of increasing tillage, which every where 

 almost they have at their own disposal. Wherever we go 

 we see the manure of the farm-yard carelessly heaped up, 

 and left without thought to all the changes and vicissitudes 

 of the weather. To-day it is baking in the sunshine; to- 

 morrow it is washing away in the rain. Here it stands by 

 a brook, there on the brink of a marl pit, or pool of water, 

 that whatever drains from it may get speedily away. Some- 

 times a dunghill is placed under the eaves of an outhouse, 

 that it may get the benefit of an extra drenching, to get 

 quit as it were of the impurities it may contain. To judge 

 from this practice we might infer, either that there was no 

 value in the material washed away, or that in itself it was 

 totally useless, or even detrimental, if detained. Yet at cer- 

 tain periods of the year, we observe several of these farmers 

 thus lavish of their farm-yard manure, going to the neigh- 

 bouring towns, and purchasing various kinds at so much a ton, 

 to make up for the deficiency in the quantity accumulated 

 at home. The conclusion then is, that these farmers must 

 be totally ignorant of the uses of manures in general, or 

 imagine that no diminution in their value and quantity can 

 arise, from the continued action of the air and water to which 

 they arc constantly exposed. Before the full extent of such 

 loss as farmers in this way sustain can be ascertained, it is 

 necessary, first, fully to understand the part manures play in 

 the great economy of vegetation. 



We have likened the farmer to the contractor for a build- 

 ing, who has to bring together the necessary materials for 

 constructing the same. Manures are known to increase the 

 quantity of produce in the various kinds of crops to which 

 they are applied. They are therefore a material for the 

 crop, or they aid as agents in collecting such material ; so 



