THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



287 



fessor Voelcker, just brought before the pubUc, 

 will be highly useful. They will assuredly tend to 

 convince the farmer of the advantage to be derived 

 from the analysis of the proposed liquid fertiUzers, 

 so as to enable him to place a money value upon 

 their contents. 



The great error in using liquid manures usually 

 consists in not reflecting that these must be divided 

 into two great classes : first, those which are highly 

 concentrated ; and secondly, those extensively 

 diluted with water. The action of these upon the 

 soil are too generally regarded as precisely similar 

 — although we must see, upon a little reflection, 

 that while the chief value of the first class consists 

 in their solid contents, the fertilizing power of the 

 other commonly resides in an equal degree in their 

 watery portion. Thus the Flemish farmers dress 

 their sandy soils once or twice annually, with only 

 ten hogsheads per acre at a time, of their rich 

 liquid manure ; but the Italians, who use the 

 waters of the Po mixed with the sewage of Milan, 

 and the holders of the Edinburgh and Clipstone 

 and Hampshire meads, who have also a very diluted 

 sewage manure, apply it by hundreds of tons per 

 acre, repeating the soakage in some places every 

 eighteen days during the greater portion of the 

 year. The rich liquid manure of Flanders, of 

 which we have heard so much, is in fact regularly 

 manufactured by almost every Flemish farmer, in 

 capacious tanks. "We are told that these skilful 

 cultivators would as soon think of parting with 

 their cowhouse or their ploiigli as with their tank ; 

 and no expense or trouble is spared, it seems, to 

 keep it well supplied. The farmers of Belgium 

 would place little value upon some of the merely 

 discoloured waters which we are ever and anon 

 apt to dignify with the name of liquid manures. 

 Let us dwell for a moment upon the description of 

 the liquid manure, which I had some time since 

 occasion to give, prepared by the continental 

 farmers, and ask ourselves, whether this at all re- 

 sembles the kind of fluid we have been wont to so 

 hopefully experimentalize with ? The Flemish 

 farmers' liquid manure is obtained by collecting 

 and fermenting the drainage of their stables and 

 stalls into underground reservoirs or pits till it 

 attains a slimy or mucous state. It is usual to allow 

 this fermentation to continue for some time. There 

 is in Flanders a difference of opinion as to the best 

 age of the fermenting liquid; some of the chief 

 farmers consider it should be six months old before 

 it is used. By this protracted fermentation some 

 of the solid portion of the manure is rendered more 

 soluble, whilst a considerable quantity of ammonia 

 is formed, and dissolved in the liquid. Sprengel 

 found that a given portion of the urine of the cow, 

 which when fresh contained 205 parts of ammonia. 



held 487 after it had been fermented, and 1,622 

 when (previous to fermentation) it had been mixed 

 wth its own bulk of water {Farmers'' Almanac, 

 vol, ii,, p. 47). If then, I repeat, we remember a 

 few of these useful facts, we should not be so apt 

 to expect a profitable result from the use of a very 

 limited portion of merely discoloured pond water. 

 The experiments of Professor Voelcker, to which 

 I have already referred, were made upon six speci- 

 mens of liquid manure, and these were obtained 

 {Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc, vol, xix., p, 522). 



1 . From Westonbirt, near Tetbury. 



2. From Badminton. 



3. From the Royal Agricultural College Farm 



at Cirencester, collected in 1857. 



4. From the same, collected in 1858. 



5. From Tiptree Hall, clear liquid. 



6. From the same, muddy Hquid. 



They all had a dark colour and disagreeable 

 smell. And what is a very useful fact to remem- 

 ber, their specific gravity corresponded with the 

 amount of solid matters which each kind con- 

 tained. So that this aff'ords a very easy way of 

 ascertaining the value of a decomposing liquid 

 manure, since to a certain extent the specific gra- 

 vity of these liquids may serve as an indication of 

 their relative fertilizing power. 



The solid contents of the hquids examined by 

 the Professor, and their specific gravity, will be 

 found in the following table. These then contained, 

 of organic and mineral matters, in grains per 

 gallon, and were of specific gravity, as follows, 

 viz., that from 



Solid Contents. Sp. Grav. 



Westonbirt 418 1-006 



Badminton 601 1-007 



College Farm, 1858 ..111 1-0014 



Tiptree, clear Hquid . . 29 I'OOOG (sic) 



Tiptree, with sediment . 95 I'OOl 



These specimens contained of phosphoric acid 

 and of nitrogen, in diflferent states, equal to am- 

 monia, the following amounts, given in grains per 

 gallon. 



Phos. Acid. Nitrogen. 



Westonbirt 2*7 114 



Badminton 9'5 22 



Cirencester, 1857 2-3 26 



Ditto, 1858 4-8 37 



Tiptree, the clear 2-3 4 



Ditto, the muddy 3-7 5 



From these and other data the Professor pro- 

 ceeds to work out the most valuable practical por- 

 tion of this and similar enquiries, viz., the economy 

 of distributing on the land the liquid manures thus 

 analyzed. He takes as a basis for his calculation 

 the estimate of Mr. Mechi, that the cost per ton of 

 delivering hquid manure at his farm may be taken 

 at from l^d, to 2d. per ton, and that upon an 



