Farmyard Maimre. 191 



that the farmer should feel especially anxious when the hounds 

 are out, as evinced by the more than ordinarily earnest warning 

 of " 'ware wheat" in a field in which the marks of the horses 

 feet would not be effaced for months. 



Cracking in Drought is a condition to which stiff soils are 

 peculiarly liable: this results in great injury to delicate-rooted 

 plants, and especially wheat. If, for example, after a long con- 

 tinuance of March winds, the soil be cracked, as shown in the 

 diagram (10), it follows that the fibres of the roots are rent, 

 and then the secondary root growth is impeded, fibrils do not 

 branch, and therefore when rain fills up the cracks (see diagram) 

 new rootlets push out from the stems, by which process much 

 time and vitality is lost : indeed, that power is being spent on 

 reparation which should have been employed in tillering and 

 general growth. 

 Ftb., 1856. 



VIII. — On the Composition of Farmyard Manure, and the Changes 

 which it undergoes on keeping under different Circumstances. 

 By Dr. Augustus Voelcker, F.C.S., Prof, of Chemistry in the 

 Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. 



It is generally admitted that the management of farmyard manure, 

 as carried out in many parts of England, more especially in the 

 western counties, is often attended with much loss in valuable 

 fertilising matters. In a country in which large sums are annually 

 expended by the farming community in the purchase of artificial 

 food and foreign manures, it might naturally be expected that the 

 utmost care would be bestowed on tlie treatment of home-made 

 dung, and that in its preparation the suggestions of improved 

 practice and modern science would frequently be called into requi- 

 sition l)y the cultivator of the soil. Experience, however, teaches 

 that this is far from being the case. It is, indeed, a matter of 

 surprise, no less to the agricultural chemist than to the more in- 

 telligent portion of the agricultural community, that there should 

 exist on the one hand so much ignorance on the first principles 

 involved in the management of farmyard manure, and on the 

 other so much indifference as to the best means of preventing 

 the deterioration of the most important of all fertilizers. For 

 my own part, however, I cannot share the opinions of those zeal- 

 ous and, no doubt, sincere agricultural reformers, who describe 

 the practical fanner as adverse to every now improvement, and 

 turning a doaf ear to the suggestions of modern science. I know 

 well how little of what commonly passes as a law of nature, or 



