MANURES. 525 



spoken likewise of the use of the water in which flax has been 

 rotted. I have seen the most beneficial results from it; but I 

 am not aware of its use in Flanders. 



From the starch factory this water is conveyed into a basin or 

 excavation, where, after remaining a short time, it makes a 

 considerable deposit. This deposit is taken out and spread upon 

 the land, or thrown into and mixed in compost ; and the water 

 is drained off, and conveyed upon the field by small ditches 

 or rills. 



3. ANIMAL MANURES. The great reliance for manure, how 

 ever, every where is upon animal manure, the excrements of 

 animals, and animal substances. One of the most obvious 

 deficiencies in French husbandry is a deficiency in manure. 

 They are not accustomed to folding sheep upon their lands, as is 

 common in British husbandry. They grow very little of escu 

 lent vegetable food for their live stock, such as turnips and car 

 rots ; and their cattle are kept in the winter often very hardly 

 upon straw. In summer their cattle are much in the pastures, 

 overlooked by a herdsman or a child, so that the manure is 

 scattered. 



There is likewise a manufacture of manure called animaliec 

 noir, which consists in boiling down the flesh of animals, such 

 as horses, for example, or animals which have died of disease, 

 and are unfit for food ; and after it is boiled, baking it in an 

 oven, when it is brought into a state easily to be reduced to 

 powder. There is a manufacture of this same kind of manure 

 in London ; but, strange to say, the product is exported to 

 France. The refuse of the sugar refineries, that is, the animal 

 charcoal, or ashes of burnt bones used in cleansing the sugar, is 

 highly esteemed as a manure ; but it is advised by the Flemish 

 farmers to mix it with their liquid, manures in the urine vault. 

 This manure is much employed in France. Its chief value is 

 on heath and moist lands. It does no good on rich, highly cul 

 tivated land. It is spread broadcast for grass, and its effects are 

 surprising. It is applied to wheat land at the time of the sow 

 ing of the seed ; it is deemed much preferable to apply it in the 

 autumn rather than in the- spring. It is applied in France at the 

 rate of four hectolitres to an acre, which would be at the rate of 

 more than eleven bushels. 



