December 22, 1863. ] 



JOUENAIi OF HOKTICULTTJRE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



MATERIALS USED m FOEMING COMPOSTS. 



INCE tlie time tliat man 

 ■was ordained to earn 

 his bread by the sweat 

 of his brow, many and 

 varied have been the 

 means adopted to light- 

 en the labour, and to 

 increase the capabili- 

 ties of certain portions 

 of the earth's surface to 

 bringforth trees, herbs, 

 or fruits in greater 

 abundance than by her 

 own unassisted power 

 she would have been able to do. The tilling of the 

 ground in the first place, to render it a fit re]3ository for 

 the seeds of the plants mostly wanted, no doubt led to 

 the addition of such decayed substances as were sup- 

 posed to be in the way, and these, being buried to get 

 rid of them, gave evidence by the improved character of 

 the crops that the addition was to their liking, and, pro- 

 bably, more care would be taken next time to distribute 

 the refuse matter more regularly over the ground. Such 

 a beginning is very likely to have been the first applica- 

 tion of manure, and it is not unlikely that examples of it 

 may yet be met with in countries but recently, or even 

 only now, commencing that course of cultivation which it 

 is said aU are destined to go through. 



Assuming this primitive mode of burying the decayed 

 substances collected about the homestead to have been 

 the commencement of that system of manuring which has 

 of late years engaged the attention of the most learned 

 men of the age, it certainly stands forth in strong con- 

 trast with what is said to have been the custom with 

 some American farmers, who, having allowed their dung- 

 heaps to accumidate before their doors to such an incon- 

 venient extent as to be no longer endurable, preferred as 

 a remedy budding new sheds and dwellings at other 

 places rather than to remove the dung. Whether this 

 was so or not, there is Little doubt but that much greater 

 waste of manurial substances takes place in countries 

 but thinly mliabited than in those in which land and its 

 produce are of great value. The manuring of some lands 

 is, however, in some countries undertaken by Nature 

 herself, and the labour of the husbandman is of a mono- 

 tonous character, differing but little one century after 

 another. Of this class is the flat but rich corn-producing 

 country of Egypt, which is more indebted for its fertility 

 to the river Nile than to any of the numerous races of 

 people which have inhabited it for the last twenty cen- 

 turies or more. 



Modes of cultivation, however, requiring more industry 

 on the part of the husbandman have been continued for 

 very long periods in certain densely populated districts 

 that have for many centuries possessed a great amount of 

 civilisation — as, for instance, the valley of the Ganges 

 and other Indian rivers, where a certain amount of manual 

 No. 143.— Vol. V., New Skbies, 



labour is most liberally met by natural assistance, which! 

 a long course of years has proved may invariably be 

 depended on. But in this case it sometimes happens 

 that the artificial process adopted bears a strong resem- 

 blance to manuring. Irrigating the Eice fields with 

 water which has been stored away for that purpose is 

 only another form of using the materials wluch Provi- 

 dence has placed within our reach ; and the supply being 

 abundant, the skdl to collect and use it was only wanting, 

 Nature having been pi'odigal in other of her bles.sihgs 

 as well. 



A much greater amount of indu.stry is wanted in coun- 

 tries less favourably placed by Nature ; but fortunately 

 the inhabitants of such countries have generally been 

 found equal to the requirements of this case. Inhabiting 

 a climate less favourable to vegetation, they have to use 

 more exertion to extract from mother earth those pro- 

 ductions they so much want ; and with the sweat of the 

 brow the mind is brought to bear on the subject, and 

 new and improved modes of cultivation are brought into 

 exercise, or it may be that a long series of experiments 

 on the part of those who have passed away may have 

 established a set of rides for the guidance of their suc- 

 cessors, and from which it is not safe to depart. To the 

 latter cause much of the cultivation of China may, doubt- 

 less, be traced ; and that empire, though no longer pro- 

 gressive according to the opinions of those who have, 

 lately .visited it, must at some former time have been so, 

 or the hjigh. state of cidtivation it has arrived at would 

 never have existed. Perhaps the most remarkable feature 

 in the cultivation of the land by that singular people, the 

 Chinese, is the careful and judicious mode in which they 

 collect and use everything in the shape of manure ; and 

 as we have reason to believe that many of the lands now 

 in cultivation have been so for many, many generations, 

 the theory of wearing-out put forth by some has assuredly 

 an antidote which the Chinese have been far-seeing enough 

 to take hold of. Other countries afl'ord examples in like 

 manner of long-continued cultivation being still attended 

 with a useful result, when prudence and industry direct 

 the operations of the cultivator. But a reverse state of 

 things is common in many countries that cnce by their , 

 civilisation and standing held a proud place in the history 

 of the world. The hiUy region of the Holy Land is, un- 

 questionably, less fruitful now than it was three thousand " 

 years ago ; and it is likely some of the fairest provinces 

 of Italy are in like manner deteriorated by a long course 

 of mismanagement. Other instances might be given ; 

 but enough has been said to prove that, in the temperate 

 and colder districts of the earth, a great amount of skill 

 and industry is required to maintain that healthy fertility 

 of the ground so necessary to the well-being of the crops 

 required for the sustenance of man. Let us now take a 

 glance at what has been done at home to attain this 

 object, and then notice some of the substances occa- 

 sionally met with as agents in increasing that proolue- 

 tiveness, or, in other words, what aro commonly called 

 fertilisers. 



In the above introductory matter I have pointed out the 

 No. 795.— Vol. XXX., Old Sbries. 



