NATURE AND PREPARATION OP MANURE. 43^ 



has become an essential measure, it will be found that much litter, 

 not only about the barn, but house, will be converted to a use- 

 ful purpose ; and, even if no other object was thereby promoted, 

 it would greatly contribute to that neatness, conducive to 

 health and comfort. The receptacle where composts are de- 

 posited, should be covered, so that no more water can pervade 

 it than is necessary to aid in the process of its decomposition.* 

 For if it be permitted to be kept so moist, as to keep up a con- 

 siderable degree of fermentation long before it is applied, it 

 will thereby throw ofFa great portion of its most nutritive ele- 

 ments. To render it, therefore, most efficacious, it should be- 

 come only so far decomposed and rotten, that it may be man- 

 ageable with a shovel and dungfork, for carting and covering 

 in the soil. Dry vegetable substances, of ai^y description, 

 which may be proper for manure, when they are permitted to 

 lie scattered, and exposed to continual alternations of drought 

 and moisture, as they usually are over the large team yards of 

 many of our farmers, through the summer, lose by that means, 

 as well as by excessive fermentation, a great part of their fer- 

 tilizing ingredients. So, also, if they are permitted to lie in a 

 wet yard, where they will be leached with water, the farmer 

 may be assured, he will thereby lose a great share of the bene- 

 fits, which he might otherwise derive from them. 



It is easy to discover, from what has been observed above, 

 that dry, and other vegetable substances, may be made man- 

 ageable as manure, and deposited in the soil, so that the pro- 

 cess of fermentation may be made to progress with the ger- 

 mination of the plant that it is intended to nourish. The prac- 

 tical farmer may be apt to think it will require too much 



and other anirual substance!, of fish, of soap-boilers, of tallow- 

 chandlers, oi rhoe-maker"*s shops, of dye-houses, of printing works, 

 of rag^5, of hair, of horns, of scrapings of oiled leather, of sweepings 

 of cotton and wooden mills, work-shops, ware-houses, rubbish of 

 old buildings, &c. &c. Spent tanner's bark, mixed with lime, it 

 ia said, will make a valuable manure. 



Night Soil. Decency and health require every practicable 

 means to be used, to render innoxious, or speedily to remove all 

 accumulations of this kind frotR our dwellings. Yet this manure, 

 which is esteemed by far the moit efficacious of all others, is com- 

 monly lost. If fine sifted coal ashes, or more especially fresh 

 slacked lime, were frequently thrown down the privies, all disa- 

 greeable and unwholesome smells would be prevented, and the 

 quantity and value of the compost g^ieatly increased. By this 

 management, its removal would be also rendered conveaient and 

 inoffensive to those employed. 



