142 On the Culture of Turnips. 



fidence, as I do most humbly and diffidently at this time, will 

 be candidly and condescendingly considered, and fairly weighed 

 and determined. 



The reasons which have led me, for upwards of twenty years, 

 to use and prefer putrescent to recent dung, are as follow : I have 

 invariably observed that all dung, except the dung of sheep, which 

 falls from animals while grazing, produces little or no benefit to 

 the land; let us add either chopped or long straw to the dung 

 so deposited on the land, and the effects of both will be small, 

 or nugatory: next collect stable or barton dung in a recent state, 

 and apply it to the land before any fermentation and consequent 

 putrescency have take place ; and, in my experience, it has been 

 only a little better than the dung dropped on the land from the 

 animal : but, ferment and putrefy these very same ingredients, 

 before thcv are applied to the land, and we obtain one of the 

 most powerful and valuable manures every discovered ; and 

 powerful and valuable in exact proportion to the quality of the 

 food eaten by the animal from whence the dung is obtained, and 

 its consequent putrescency and strength, by which its duration 

 and effect on the land may be practically known. 



But it has been said by the highest chemical authority above 

 cited, that the volatile parts, which fly off from a dung-heap 

 during fermentation, are the most valuable and most efficient in 

 promoting vegetation : — I have not practically found this to be 

 the case, because my dressings of putrescent dung have invari- 

 ablv produced more luxuriant crops the second, the third, and 

 sometimes even the fourth year on pasture laud, than they have 

 the first ; and if the volatile parts were the most valuable and 

 efficient in promoting vegetation, it should seem this effect could 

 not be produced by putrescent dung — and on arable land a 

 dre-ising of dung, whether recent or putrescent, renders the land 

 unfit to bear a crop of grain, of any kind, until green crops and 

 good tilth have amalgamated the dung and the earth, and ren- 

 dered the land fit for a crop of corn. 



I also consider it to be the most beneficial mode of applying 

 putrescent dung to the land, to spread it on the surface, and 

 then plough it in, and afterwards harrovv the land, by which 

 much of the dung is brought again to the surface; because, 

 contrary to the opinions of those who suppose the richness of 

 the dung to be exhaled in vapour by the sun, I humbly submit 

 to this Honourable Board, that the effect of a scorching sun, in 

 this climate at least, will be to drive all the moisture of this rich 

 dung downwards into the earth, bv which it is absorbed, and not 

 to exhale it in vapour; and by this operation, — which is renewed 

 after every shower and heavy dews which fall on the dung, and 

 so passes into the land, — more than bv anv other, I consider soil 



to 



