404 Agricultural Tour 



are brou2:ht m, they would be turned out again to the spring 

 pasture before it was completely full. But such an adjustment 

 of times and quantities cannot always be conveniently made^ and 

 a loss, therefore, now and then occurs. The liquid manure 

 (jauche, as it is here called) is applied at almost every season of 

 the year to one field or another, yet it may not always be the 

 most proper time when the cistern is full. I4ence the advantage 

 of ample space for a large supply. Upon this conviction Mr. 

 Hymers informed me he was about to erect a second cistern of 

 large dimensions. 



English farmers are now, I believe, beginning to understand 

 how very much actual money has hitherto been lost in this country 

 by the neglect or waste of the liquid of the stables, cow-houses, 

 and farm-yards. A farmer would not tolerate a servant who 

 wasted the grass or hay intended for his stock, yet he who wastes 

 liquid manure wastes grass — diminishing not only his present 

 profits, but his chance of future gains also, for he so far 

 exhausts and injures his landlord's fields. Few are unaware of 

 the benefits derived in many localities from judicious irrigation, 

 and especially where, as in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh and 

 some other large tov/ns, the water of the common sewers can be 

 employed for tlie purpose. Now the v.ater-cart is only a porta- 

 ble irrigator, and the liquid of the farm-yard is as efficacious as 

 that of the sewers. To collect the former therefore, with care, 

 and to apply it to the land whenever the horses are at leisure, 

 would at little additional expense increase both the produce and 

 the general fertility of many of our farms. 



Being so near Hamburg, manure is comparatively abundant 

 at Ham. Mr. Hymers, therefore, manures his land every year, 

 and is allowed to cultivate his arable fields as he pleases. He 

 grows wheat, barley, and potatoes, but no turnips. Wheat yields 

 twelve-fold, and potatoes 6 to 8 tons per acre. Foreign manures 

 are also occasionally applied, such as the fish refuse sometimes 

 brought from Hammerfest in Norway, and, during the last year, 

 the South American guano. About a ton of the latter had 

 recently been applied to the grass-land of this farm : it was then 

 selling in Hamburg at 12/. 5s. the English ton (10 marks 

 courant for 100 Hamburg pounds). 



The rent of land in this part of the country, when at such a 

 distance from Hamburg that milk cannot be readily sent to 

 market, is about 5 or 6 Prussian dollars a scheffel, or lbs. to IS^'. 

 an English acre. Inhere is very much of the sandy land in the 

 neighbourhood of Hamburs; that cannot be worth half of this 

 rent. 



Hamburg to Kid, July blh. — The road from Hamburg to 



