310 AGRICULTURAL TEXT-BOOK. 



The same rule appears to hold good as regards barn-yard 

 manures. In Flanders and Switzerland they have long been 

 dissolved in water previous to application, and, of late years, in 

 Great Britain, the steam engine has been employed for this pur 

 pose, and the liquid carried over the farm in iron pipes, similar 

 to those used for Hydraulic works in our cities ; the extra pow 

 er of the manure being supposed to cover the greatly increased 

 cost of preparation and application. (See Prof. J. W. F. 

 Johnston s Essay on Manures, written for the Farmer s Com 

 panion and Horticultural Gazette, vol. 1, p. 98.) So in the 

 same manner, Plaster has been found to act more efficiently 

 when plowed in, instead of being scattered over the surface, and 

 newly and finely ground gypsum is understood to act more ef 

 ficiently than that which is coarse, and long kept, even in tight 

 barrels. And again, common salt has been applied with bene 

 ficial results, in large quantities, to fruit trees in one locality, 

 while a smaller application has killed trees in another. 



There is no one subject in agriculture which demands, at the present 

 day, more careful, continued, and widely extended experiments than the 

 practice of manuring. Of the positive and relative constituents of 

 common manures, the best quantities to apply, the condition in which, 

 and the time when they should be used, the average effect which they 

 produce, and the money profit derived from their application, we regret 

 to believe that the great proportion of practical farmers are quite igno 

 rant; and there can be no doubt but that this ignorance causes great 

 individual and national losses. 



680. I. AXIMAL MANURES. 



FLESH, is a rich manure in itself, and the rapidity with which 

 it decays, enables it to bring other organic substances into a state 

 of active fermentation. It is a very compound substance, in 

 the shape in which we generally meet with it that of dead 

 animals consisting of the lean muscle, or Fibrin; of fat or 

 oil; and of blood, which again consists of Fibrin, Albumen, 

 (white of egg}) coloring matter, several salts and water ; while 

 connected with the flesh are hair, horns, hoof, tendons, bones, 



