66 IRRIGATION. 



be a sacrifice of this indispensable addition to the soil, yet 

 it is far from being such in reality. On the contrary, the 

 use of liquid manure is really an economy, and results in 

 a saving of time and labor and increases the effectiveness 

 of the solid manure. Being applied at the time when, 

 and in the condition in which it will enter at once into 

 the circulation of the plant, there is no loss of fertilizing 

 matter. The crop, fed in its early stages of growth, re 

 ceives its nutriment in such quantities and at such periods 

 as will exactly meet its needs and force it into most luxu 

 riant growth. In a dry season a plant may starve in the 

 most abundantly manured soil ; but when the manure is 

 offered to it in a liquid form, and in copious supply, the 

 growth is continuous and vigorous. A rapidly growing 

 plant has the power to extract from the soil far more nu 

 triment than a weakly plant possesses, and the stimulus 

 afforded to a crop in its early stages enables the strong 

 roots to penetrate far and wide in search of food, and the 

 vigorous foliage is able to assimilate the abundant nutri 

 ment with rapidity as fast as it is supplied. 



Every cultivator of the soil knows that a good start is 

 the making of a crop, and this is precisely what is secur 

 ed by liquid manuring. Therefore the solid manure may 

 be used simply as the material from which to manufacture, 

 by the help of all the needed rain or other water, as 

 abundant a supply of liquid as may be. To extract all 

 the soluble portion of the manure is the object, and what 

 is left may be reserved to answer the purpose of top- 

 dressing or mulching the soil in winter time, or of adding 

 to its stock of slowly decomposing organic matter for 

 future crops. It will be profitable therefore to adopt 

 such a complete system of drains, tanks, and pumps, as 

 will save every portion of waste from stable or manure- 

 heaps, all the water that may fall upon, the roofs and 

 sheds, and occasionally pump up the contents of the 

 cisterns and force them to filter back again through the 



