Ohfervations on Alanures, 341 



. 6. Soap-makers' wajle. I have tried only one load of this manure on a few roods of ground 

 in four of my meadows. It has not produced the leaft efFeft, although it is now three years 

 fincc it was laid on. Soap-mnkers' wafte, potafh, and barilla, are probably held in too much 

 efteern as preparers of the food of plants, by philofophical chemiil:?,'cf whom it might be 

 wiftied that a little praBice were combined with their theoretical ideas on the fcience of agri- 

 culture, that they would try their fpurious theories by the teft of experiment, before they pub- 

 li(h them to the world. 



I am further induced to confider this kind of dreffing for land as of much lefs utility than 

 is generally imagined, from haying been informed by Mr. RufTei, junior, that his father, 

 -who is a foap-maker of great refpeftability, at Paris Garden, has ufed the tvafte of his own 

 manufactory on his farms in EfTex and Kent (in the latter one a clay foil), without difcover- 

 ing that it was of any material benefit to the land} and that he has confequently difcontinucd 

 the ufe of it. 



The experiments made by major Valley, as reported in the eighth volume of pap6rs pub- 

 liflied by the Bath Society of Agriculture, fcem alfo to prove that Dr. Hunter's food of 

 plants does not anfwer any of the purpofes for which it has been fo highly extolled ; but, on 

 the contrary, that it is really hurtful to corn corps. 



7. 'Sweepings of London Jfreets. I have ufed fevcral hundred loads of this manure on 

 grafs-Iand, and have found it to be of confiderable fervice to the fucceeding corps. I have 

 ufually laid it in large heaps, and mixed with it a fmall quantity of horfe-dung : and in this 

 ftate it generates a little heat, though lefs than might be wifhed, which helps to decompofc or 

 rOt the mixture : when thus prepared, it has been fpread on the land in proportion of ten or 

 twelve loads per acre. 



8. The foil of privies. Within thelaft four or five years this manure has been fpread on 

 my land to the expence of about i ool. The proportion from two to four loads per acre. 

 The efFe6l produced by it was ajlomjhing fertility ; fo much fo, as to induce me to be of opi- 

 nion that it exceeds every other kind of manure that can be brought into competition with 

 it, at leaft for the firft year after it is laid on. In the fecond it is of fome fervice, but in the 

 third its effects very nearly, or entirely ceafe. From thcfe premifes I draw this conclu- 

 fion, that for land in good condition the application of two loads per acre per annum will 

 •continue it in that ftate for any length of time. And alfo, that land which has been much 

 Cxhaufted mighfbe r^ored by laying on four or five loads per acre; after which, a repeti- 

 tion of two loads annually would be found fufficient to keep it in the higheft degree of 

 fertility. 



g. Farm-yard dung. This, when it had been once turned, and become about three- fourth*^ 

 rotten, I have ufed in the proportion of about thirteen ox fourteen loads ■^cr acre ; and found it 

 much lefs effe£live for one year, than three loads of night-foil. I believe, that even a load and a 

 Lilfof foil would have been equal to the foregoing quantity of dung. In the fecond year I 

 •could not perceive any difference between the dung and the foil. 



,In the laft yx^'ume of the Tranfa<aions of thte Society, page 168, a crop of wheat, amount- 

 Vox. III. November. 177,9. Yy ' ing 



,/ 



