876 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



fame as a stallion is too well establisshed, both in this and the sister-kingdom, for us to dwell further on 

 it now. Amongst other winners, however, his stock include one of the Derby in Daniel O'Rourke, one 

 Oaks witli Songstress, and three Great St. Leger heroes— The Baron, The Knight of St. George, and 

 Warlock. Chanticleer and very many other good names also go to his credit. 



Elphine, bred by Mr. Thornhill in 1837, and put to the stud in 1841, is also the dam of Petit 

 Morceau, New Era, Lambton, The Incurable, and others. 



Warlock is a roan or partly bay horse— on the head, neck, and top of his quarters — standing fifteen 

 hands two and a-half inches high. He has a small Birdcatcher head, nicely set on to a very blood-like 

 neck. He is somewhat upright in his shoulder, but has a good barrel, back, and loins, with capital 

 arms. He is rather narrow in his quarters, and light in his thighs; standing somewhat upright before, 

 aad, for his size, high on the leg. He has a white heel behind— the near side— and a star on the fore- 

 head ; with a full tail, which he carries well out, when in action — his style of going very corky and 

 catching. He has proved himself to be very stout and honest. 



FAR M-Y ARD MANURE. 



BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S. 



We can hardly too often recur to the subject of 

 manure. It is only by the aid of fertilizers that 

 man maintains the incessant contest which is ever 

 going on between his crops and their soils. If he 

 is skilful and industrious in the application of 

 dressings, his lands are rendered at least as fertile 

 by tillage, and commonly more so, than when left 

 to nature's care. But if he is either careless in 

 their preparation or ignorant of the common-sense 

 results of neglect, his manure is impoverished, and his 

 farm becomes diminished in value. The prepara- 

 tion of his farm-yard manure is the most generally 

 important of all his dressings. It is here that 

 many mistakes are apt to be made, not only by the 

 farmer, but by those laborious chemists v.'ho have 

 during the [)resent generation' so materially pro- 

 moted the advancement of agriculture. 



These errors are in some degree attributable to 

 the natural difficulties of the subject. The merely 

 procuring a fair specimen of farm-yard manure for 

 analysis is no easy task. It is often very different 

 in composition, on different sides of the same yard. 

 Some specimens, even from the same spot, contain 

 more straw than others, or different kinds of straw : 

 others abound too much in the dung of one kind 

 of animals. Then, again, one yard is cooler or 

 drier than another, has a favourable or unfavourable 

 aspect. In one the stock are better fed, in another 

 the food is oftener changed. These and many other 

 sources of variation ever render comparative chemi- 

 cal examinations of yard-compost less valuable 

 than when we are examining other fertilizers. Still 

 these are not reasons why we should abandon those 

 valuable investigations. They are the very argu- 

 ments why we should extend and verify our trials. 

 Of that opinion is, evidently, the enlightened pro- 

 fessor of chemistry at Cirencester ; and what Mr. 

 Voelcker has recently been illustrating will well 



repay my reader, on some November evening, for 

 the most careful consideration. He may perhaps, 

 in reading the professor's valuable paper " On 

 Farm-yard Manure, and the Drainage of Dung- 

 heaps" {Jour. R. A. S. vol. xviii.,^. Ill), find some 

 practical conclusions to which the results of his 

 own experience may be opposed. But let such an 

 inquirer reflect upon the varying influences under 

 which farm-yard compost is prepared ; and, in any 

 case, let him not forget that it is only by repeated 

 and patient inquiries after truth that her confines 

 are even approached. Two very material questions 

 here engaged this accurate chemist's attention : the 

 loss of ammonia during 1, the preparation of yard- 

 manure; and 2, after it had been made into com- 

 post heaps. We shall see that he was not unmind- 

 ful of either its gaseous emanations, or of its loss 

 in the drainage water. 



It is satisfactory to find, from these researches, 

 that the loss of ammonia from fermenting dung is 

 commonly not so considerable as is sometimes be- 

 lieved. We are, in these inquiries, perhaps too 

 ready to be deceived by careless observation. "There 

 are many people (observes Mr. Voelcker) who run 

 wild with the idea that everything that smells 

 strongly must contain free ammonia; but that is 

 far too sweeping a conclusion. In the case of 

 horse-dung for instance, we are too apt to believe 

 this loss to be far greater than it really is. Yet (as 

 the professor adds) although in fermenting horse- 

 dung the proportion of nitrogen is larger than in 

 fresh, which agrees well with previous analyses of 

 fresh or rotten common yard-manure, yet in 

 perfectly fresh horse-dung the amount of free 

 ammonia is scarcely weighable, it being only about 

 3 parts in every 100,000 parts of dung, or 3lbs. for 

 every 40 tons; the same description of manure in 

 an active state of fermentation yields somewhat 



