176 BOARD ^ OF AGRICULTURE. 



By way of comparison, we would only add that one hun- 

 dred parts of the urine of a healthy man are equal to thirteen 

 hundred parts of the fresh dung of a horse (our authority 

 the same, Liebig). Physiology teaches us, that, in the 

 economy of man, his urine contains all the soluble mineral 

 substances of his food ; the solid excrements contain those 

 ingredients which are not soluble in water. We would, in 

 this respect, allude to the analogy between nature's process 

 and man's analysis. Burn the food of man, and conserve 

 the ashes, and the result is the same as with the internal fire 

 of man, oxygen. The urine contains the soluble salts, and 

 the faeces the insoluble salts, of both processes. 



We have spoken of the advantages and value of night-soil 

 as a manure, in reference to its containing the elements of all 

 plants according to chemical analysis. Let us further con- 

 sider its advantages relative to application ; and, first, it is a 

 well-known fact that barnyard-manure is not immediately 

 felt on the first crop in its intensity. While, undoubtedly, it 

 feeds and stimulates the first crop, yet its powers are not 

 therein exhausted ; and this constitutes the boast of the 

 unskilled husbandman. He Will cart out the contents of his 

 barnyard and manure-heaps by the hundred cords, and 

 deposit them carefully in heaps on his fields, to be afterwards 

 spread and ploughed in. He takes no note of the time spent 

 in this laborious operation, but goes through it as the routine 

 of a lifetime, with no better reason than that his father did 

 so before him. The fact that he does not get the full bene- 

 fit of his labor and manure in the first crop is to his mind a 

 higher proof of the correctness of his tillage. Now, the idea 

 of saving labor in the application of manure does not enter 

 into his economy : he does not consider time as money, nor 

 yet, again, can he understand that rapidity of action in a 

 manure can be a valuable quality. Li other words, he must 

 be blind to the fact that he may have a manure which will 

 not only save him time and labor, but which, at a less cost, 

 will give him a more abundant crop, and also permanently 

 enrich his land ; and this may all be claimed for night-soil. 

 We may here refer again to the practice of the Chinese, and 

 the advantage they derive from the almost exclusive use of 

 this manure. It is said that their fields seem to grow noth- 

 ing but the plant which is the object of solicitude with the 



