320 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



matter to vegetation. Those agriculturists who have, for a long time, 

 manured fields with ike ordinary manure, know how little result attends the 

 labor and expenditure of solids in dry weather, for when in that form it is 

 nearly all lost. 



There is ho doubt but that liquid manure gains in quantity and quality, 

 and in other conditions ; that the results from that method of preparing 

 enriches a greater quantity tlian with the ordinary method ; tliat the farmer 

 may with it always assist a failing vegetation ; that it may be given abun- 

 dantly of a sufficient quantity ; that liquid manure is particularly suitable 

 for fodder plants, and that those who can ought to resort to it as the basis 

 of their cultivation. 



Having given evidence as to the fertilizing powers of liquid manure, I 

 will now relate the expense of several mechanical means of distribution, 

 and will first state the practical disadvantages of liquids, so that you 

 will be compelled to allow that I am fair. The expense of the re-arrange- 

 ment of stables and cattle sheds, and the construction of new tanks and 

 reservoirs ; the expense of the carriage of the liquids to distant fields, 

 over bad roads ; that many young plants do not bear the application of 

 liquid manure, except in moist weather, when the gj"Ound will not sustain 

 the passage of loaded carts. Though it may always be put on when the 

 weather is frosty to advantage. A further inconvenience is that the solid 

 residue will not rise in the pumps, and must therefore be cleansed out three 

 or four times a 3'ear, and treated as compost ; lime must then be used to 

 decompose the fibrous matters. In Belgium, and many parts of Germany, 

 some of the inconveniencies of the delivery from the water cart are 

 obviated by conveying it into the fields in casks, borne by laborers, on 

 their backs, from whence they distribute it by hand, which I have often 

 seen them do, and been assured by them that it paid. This distribution, 

 either by water cart or hand carriage, is attended by the inconvenience of 

 delivery in too high a state of concentration, in order to avoid the increased 

 bulk and weight of carriage by proper dilution, which would often be with 

 eight or ten parts of water. But by the method of distribution through 

 pipes, with hose and jet (by steam power where there is not sufiicient fall,) 

 the objections above named are obviated and many advantages gained, as 

 will be perceived by the practical examples that I will furnish. 



In Mr. Holland's experiments, three tons of night soil, diluted with 

 seventeen tons of water, produced a more fertilizing effect than a top 

 dressing of fifteen loads of stable manure. The weight of grass on the 

 irrigated land was fifty per cent greater. With an eight horse power steam 

 engine, with the labor of one engineman and four distributors with hose 

 and jets, three hundred loads of liquid manure were distributed in ten 

 hours, about half which time was occupied in shifting the hose. He has 

 used hose 1,000 feet long over elevations of thirty and forty feet with ease. 



On Mr. Kennedy's farm, the quantity delivered by a jet worked by a 

 twelve-horse steam engine, at an extreme length of three-quarters of a 

 mile, or over four hundred acres, was about -iO,000 gallons, or 180 tons 



