442 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



most benefi.cially applied after fermentation has fairly commenced, and 

 before it reaches the final state of the process, decomposition is attended 

 with a diminution of urea and an increase of ammonia. It is important 

 that it should be collected and fermented in tightly covered cisterns to 

 prevent the escape of volatile matters ; and it has been proposed to add 

 gypsum, sulphate of iron, or sulphuric acid, to the fermenting urine, 

 in order to fix the ammonia ; the mixture of vegetable mould with it, 

 has also been recommended as equally effective and more economical. 

 The loss of manure in waste urine, in densely populated countries and 

 large cities, is immense. 



If every human being voids annually enough urine to manure an 

 acre of ground, which is the calculation of scientific farmers, then a 

 family of ten persons, if so minded, could save enough to enrich ten 

 acres ; and, the inhabitants of a city containing five hundred thousand 

 inhabitants, New York, for instance, if means were provided to collect 

 and convert their liquid evacuations into manure, would fertilize five 

 hundred thousand acres of land ; which, if well cultivated, would 

 yield vegetable food double the amount of their own consumption of 

 it ; and enough, also, to rear and fatten the farm animals required for 

 their nourishment. The same estimate may be made of the inhabit- 

 ants of other localities. Again, it is calculated that each man will 

 void six hundred pounds of urine in a year. But we will call it one 

 half of that for each individual in a family, so that if the family is 

 composed of ten persons, the urine voided by the whole in a year, will 

 be three thousand pounds. This, at one cent a pound, (much less than 

 the cost of guano,) will amount to thirty dollars ; so that if it were 

 saved, and applied as a manure, would save annually to the family 

 doing it, thirty dollars, now ordinarily lost. At this rate, there might 

 be an annual saving in this article, from a city like New York, of one 

 million and five hundred thousand dollars. 



URSUS. The bear, a genus of animals of ten species, which in- 

 clude the brown bear, a solitary animal, which lives on vegetables and 

 fish ; the American bear, which climbs trees ; the Polar bear, twelve 

 feet long, white, with shaggy hair, and very courageous when attacked, 

 or in attacking boats and ships ; the glutton, so called from its vora- 

 city ; the raccoon ; and the badger, about two feet long, living under 

 ground on roots, fruit, frogs, and insects, and quite inoffensive, but 

 often destroyed amidst circumstances of great cruelty. 



VALERIAN. The root of this plant has been long extolled as 

 an efficacious remedy in epilepsy, which caused it to be exhibited in a 

 variety of other complaints termed nervous, in which it has been found 

 highly serviceable. It is also in very general use, as an antispas- 

 modic, and is exhibited in convulsive hysterical diseases. A simple 

 and volatile tincture is prepared from it, for which directions are given 

 in medical books. 



VANILLA. An exotic, parasitical plant, growing in Mexico ; 



