MANAGEMENT OF MANURE. 



77 



time to look abroad for assistance. Farm 

 yard manure is, therefore, the first object 

 of improvement ; and it is to this great end 

 that our remarks upon manures have of 

 late been directed. The man who wastes 

 his farm-yard manure and buys other 

 things, can only be compared to him who 

 should leave his wheat upon the ground, 

 and buys rice or maize to make good his 

 prodigality. We assert, without fear of 

 contradiction, that the farmer does, in the 

 great majority of cases, commit a folly 

 equivalent to this ; not indeed, intentional- 

 ly, but from not knowing better. 



It is not, however, merely because of its 

 cheapness, that farm-yard manure is the 

 best of all substances for enriching land, 

 but because it contains such a great variety 

 of substances, among which each crop finds 

 that which it most requires, and in the fit- 

 test state for becoming its food. " Fortu- 

 nately," says Dr. Daubeny, in one of his 

 excellent agricultural discourses, " we are 

 provided, in the dung of animals, with a 

 species of manure of which the land can 

 never be said to tire, for this simple reason, 

 that it contains Avithin itself not 07ie alone, 

 but all the ingredients which plants require 

 for their nutrition ; and what is perhaps of 

 equal importance, existing too, in that pre- 

 cise condition in which they are most read- 

 ily taken in and assimilated." No wonder 

 then, that the Royal Agricultural Society 

 of England should have made the subject 

 of farm-yard manure the subject of one of 

 their prizes, and that we should in the 

 meantime be turning our feeble efforts in 

 the same direction. 



It must be evident, to those who have 

 considered the subject, that the great points 

 to attend to are, firstly, to reduce the ani- 

 mal and vegetable matter of manure to a 

 decayed state ; and secondly, to keep every- 1 



thing that results from this decay, whether 

 fluid or solid, or invisible, after it has been 

 obtained. It is of no use to catch the hare, 

 if you do not hold her. The farmer lets 

 his stock trample straw and manure to- 

 gether in the yard, and by degrees it be- 

 comes partially rotten ; it is then thrown 

 into heaps, and allowed to ferment ; and 

 then it is used. The market gardener 

 carts the long stable-litter from town, 

 throws it into a heap, lets it ferment, and 

 then applies it to his land. In both these 

 cases, rain and other fluids wash away one» 

 part, which runs to waste ; the fermentation 

 drives off another, which disappears in the 

 air ; and what is left is, at the most, about 

 half as good as it should be. This cannot 

 be the way to manage manure. 



What should be done, is something like 

 this : every husbandman should have a 

 place for preparing manure. It should be 

 a trench or ditch, large in proportion to the 

 quantity of manure to be prepared. The 

 bottom and sides should be made firm with 

 clay or any other material that will prevent 

 a waste of the water used in preparing the 

 manure. This trench should fall towards 

 one end ; and at that end a hole should be 

 made, (which we will call A,) and well 

 puddled or lined with clay, so as to hold 

 water, into which all the liquid matter that 

 runs from the manure should drain. By 

 the side of the trench should be a pump 

 and well, which might be so contrived as 

 to throw water in a stream all over the 

 manure, when necessary. All things be- 

 ing ready, a quantity of raw manure, con- 

 sisting as usual, of straw and all sorts of 

 impurities, should be placed in a layer at 

 the bottom of the trench, well watered, and 

 trampled down ; by this means it will be 

 enabled to decay faster than if it was dry, 

 for the mass will begin to heat ; what wa- 



