ORGANIC MANURES. 50 



How important then, that every particle of it be carefully 

 husbanded fur the crops. 



The average urine of the cow, as analyzed by Sprengel, 

 contains 92.6 per cent, of water ; that of the horse, 94 ; the 

 sheep, 96 ; the hog, 92.6 ; and the human, 93.3. The 

 remainder is composed of salts and rich vegetable food ; 

 but the human is far richer in these than any other. The 

 quantity and value of urine varies much, and depends on 

 the food and liquid taken into the stomach, the loss by 

 perspiration, &c. 



SOLID ANIMAL MANURES. Of these Horse dung is the 

 richest and the easiest to decompose. If in heaps, fermenta- 

 tion will sometimes commence in 24 hours; and even in mid- 

 winter if a large pile be accumulated, it will proceed with 

 great rapidity; and if not arrested, a few weeks under favor, 

 able circumstances, are sufficient to reduce it to a small part 

 of its original weight and value. Boussingault, one of the 

 most careful observers of nature, as well as an accurate 

 experimental chemist, states the nitrogen in fresh dried horse 

 dung to be 2.7 per cent. The same manure laid in a thick 

 stratum and permitted to undergo entire decomposition, loses 

 9-10 of its whole weight, and the remaining tenth when 

 dried, gives only 1 per cent, of nitrogen Such are the 

 losses which follow the neglect of inconsiderate farmers. 

 Peculiar care should therefore be taken to arrest this action 

 at the precise point desired. 



The manure of Sheep is rich and very active, and next to 

 that of the horse is the most subject to heat and decompose. 

 The manure of Cattle and Swine being of a colder nature, 

 may be thrown in with that of the horse and sheep in alter- 

 nate layers. If fresh manure be intermixed with straw and 

 other absorbents, (vegetables, peat, turf, &c.) and constantly 

 added, the recent coating will combine with any volatile 

 matters which fermentation developes in the lower part of 

 the mass. Frequent turning of the manures is a practice 

 attended with no beneiit, but with the certainty of the escape 

 of much of its valuable properties. Many farmers assign a 

 distinct or peculiar merit to the different manures. Much of 

 this opinion is fanciful, for there is frequently more difference 

 in the comparative value of that from the same species, and 

 even the same individual, at different times and under differ- 

 ent circumstances, than from those of different species. 



The diversity in manures may arise from several causes. 

 The more thoroughly the food is digested and its nutritive 



