THK A<;KHTi/rrKE OF THE PAST. 353 



a height which perhaps has not yet been surpassed in Europe. It is said, 

 that so early as the tenth century, the revenue of Saracenic Spain alone 

 amounted to 6,000,000 sterling probably as much as that of all the 

 rest of Europe at that time. The ruins of their noble works for the irri- 



ion of the soil, still attest their skill and industry, and put to shame 

 the ignorance and indolence of their successors. The same remark applie- 

 to the Spanish dominions in South America. In the ancient empire of 

 IV ru, agriculture seems to have reached a high degree of perfection. The 

 ruins of basins and canals, frequently carried through tunnels, prove their 

 industry and skill in irrigation. One of their aqueducts is said by Mr 

 Fresco tt to have been traced by its ruins for nearly 500 miles. Thev 

 cultivated the sides of mountains, by means of terraces which retained 

 forced soil, and were skilled in the application of manure. That on which 

 they chiefly depended was guano, and their Incas protected the penguin- 

 by which it was deposited, by strict laws, which made it highly penal to 

 kill one of these birds, or to set foot on the islands at breeding time. The 

 Spaniards thus obtained possession of two good patrimonies, and hav. 

 wasted them both. 



The agriculture of nearly the whole of the continent of Europe has 

 made very great progress since. In Flanders, the Netherlands, Switzer- 

 land, and Germany, there are certain limited districts which, in general 

 management, rival, and in particular points excel, our own. In nothin 

 this more apparent than in their scrupulous economy of manure, both a^ 

 regards its preparation and application. In Flanders, not only the con- 



s of privies, but soap-suds, scullery-water, and slops of every kind 

 containing fertilizing matters, are carefully preserved in suitable recepta- 

 by the town's folk and villages, from whom they are puivhasrd 1>\ 

 regular manure drains, who come steadily round with their tub-carts to 

 c.ll.ct this sewage, store it in tanks, and in due time retail it to the farm- 

 ers. The latter invariably have tanks of their own, in which the u\ 

 of their cattle and -imilar matters are collected. This liquid manurr i^ 



[Uently enriched by the addition of ni^ht-soil and rape-dust, and ifl 



>ivd for s,-v<-ral months before heiiiLj applied to thr land. In 

 \vit/erland and Holland, the same attention u 



: to the pivparation of liquid manurr, h\- mingling the dung and ui 



with watrr, frnnrntin^ it in tanks, and thrn in distrihut 

 it over green crops by means of hanvl ,-arN. Tin- following miidit stand 

 for a description of My jv Mill, or Tiptrre, but f>r the \\ant of the tte*m- 

 nip, and underground p Thr eov, . lie on 



a day, for which purpose a 



