E. J. Russell and E. H. Richards 501 



Crop : and the increase of your Crop will make an increase of your 

 Dung..." etc. 



But these instructions were not generally followed, and so it happens 

 that William Ellis, the farmer writer of Little Gaddesden, Herts, was 

 driven in 1731^ to condemn utterly and vigorously the common plan 

 of throwing out all dung in separate little heaps in the farmyard, and 

 leaving it there exposed to the wash of the rain. All these, he says, 

 should be mixed together and kept under cover to protect them from 

 the weather, or failing a suitable covered place, "then as the Beast 

 Dungs are made they should be lain iii one great Heap or Dung Hill, 

 which, next to Cover, will preserve their good Properties in a great 

 Measure from the Power of Rains and Droughts ; and, as the black 

 Water drains from it, it ought to be carefully preserved, by causing 

 it to run into such a Receptacle or Reservoir, as will give the Farmer 

 an Opportunity to carry it out in a Tub or Barrel, for throwing it over 

 the Dunghill, or to scatter it over Plowed or Grass land." 



Later writers, Donaldson ^ and others add little to this. 



In the Experimental Period at the end of the eighteenth century the 

 first point to be attacked was the cj^uestion of rotting the manure. So long 

 as it was applied to wheat in the large quantities common at the time^ 

 some preliminary rotting was needed to kill the weeds, but with the 

 introduction of hoed or fallow crops this procedure became unnecessary. 

 A number of farmers pointed out in the Annals of Agriculture that 

 the fresh dung drawn straight from the beasts and applied to these 

 cultivated crops gave better results than rotted dung^. 



The ancient rule about the need for rotting the dung, therefore, 

 was seen to be without foundation, and this was confirmed on the 

 chemical side by Gazzeri^, and finally by the detailed analyses of 

 A. Voelcker^ in 1856. It is now generally admitted that the making 

 of the manure heap is a matter of convenience only, and not of necessity, 

 and that the most economical plan is simply to leave the manure under 

 the beasts until it is wanted, — provided always that the yard is covered. 



1 Wm Ellis, The Modern Husbandman, for the month of November, pp. 67 et seq. 

 in the 1743 edition. 



- James Donaldson, Modern Agriculture, or the present state of husbandry in Great 

 Britain, 1796, pp. 26, 245 et seq. 



' Eighteen to twenty-four cartloads, each containing 16 to 18 cwt., per statute acre, 

 according to Donaldson. 



* These papers are summarised by Young in his interesting " Essay on Manure," 

 Bath Soc. Papers, vol. x. 1804. See also Young's Farmer's Calendar, Art. Manure. 



5 Quoted in Boussingault, Economie Rurale, 2nd edition, 1851, vol. i. p. 707. • 



« A. Voelcker, Journ. Roy. Agric. Soc. 1856, 17, 191-260. 



33—2 



