Book VI. COMPOSTS. 745 



fitter for occasional tillage, upon them the lime was ploughed in. These fields were 

 also sown with oats and grass-seeds. The latter throve well and gave a fine pasture the 

 first year ; but afterwards the bent spread so fast, that, in three years, there was more of 

 it than of the finer grasses." 



4592. The conclusions which Dawson draws from his extensive practice in the use of 

 lime and dung, deserve the attention of all cultivators of similar land. 



1. That animal dung dropped upon coarse, benty pastures, produces little or no improvement upon 

 them ; and that, even when sheep or cattle are confined to a small space, as in the case of folding, their 

 dung cease* to produce any beneficial effect, after a few years, whether the land is continued in pasture, 

 or brought under the plough. 



2. That even when land of this description is well fallowed and dunged, but not limed, though the dung 

 augments the produce of the suljsequent crop of grain, and of grass also for two or three years, that there- 

 alter its efFects are no longer discernible either upon the one or the other. 



3. That when this land is limed, if the lime is kept upon the surfatie of the soil, or well mixed with it, 

 and then laid down to pasture, the finer grasses continue in possession of the soil, even in elevated and 

 exposed situations, for a great many j^ears, to the exclusion of bent and moss. In the case of Grubhet 

 hills, it was observed, that more than thirty years have now elapsed. Besides this, the dung of the 

 animals pastured upon such land adds every year to the luxuriance, and improves the quality of the 

 pasture ; and augments the productive powers of the soil when afterwards ploughed for grain ; thus pro- 

 ducing, upon a benty outfield soil, efTects similar to what are experienced when rich infield lands have 

 been long in pasture, and which are thereby more and more enriched. 



4. That when a large quantity of lime is laid on such lanfl, and ploughed down deep, the same effects will 

 not be produced, whether in respect to the permanent fineness of the pasture, its gradual amelioration by 

 the dung of the animals pastured on it, or its fertility when afterwards in tillage. On the contrary, unless 

 the surface is fully mixed with lime, the coarse grasses will in a few years regain possession of the soil, 

 and the dung thereafter deposited by cattle will not enrich the land for subsequent tillage. 



Lastly. It also appears from what has been stated, that the four shift husbandry is only proper for very 

 rich land, or in situations where there is a full command of dung. That by far the greatest part of the 

 land of this country requires to be continued in grass two, three, four, or more years, according to its 

 natural poverty; that the objection made to this, viz. that the coarse grasses in a few years usurp pos- 

 session of the soil, must be owing to the surface soil not being sufficiently mixed with lime, the lime 

 baving been covered too deep by the plough. {Fanner's Magazine, vol. xiii. p. 69.) 



Sect. IV. Of Composts of Earth, Lime, and Dung. 



4593. Mixing farm yard dung, in a state of fermentation, with earth, in which there 

 is much inert vegetable matter; as the banks of old ditches, or what is collected from the 

 sides of lanes, &c., will bring this inert, dead matter, consisting of the roots of decayed 

 grasses and other plants, into a state of putridity and solubility, and prepare it for 

 nourishing the crops or plants it may be applied to, in the very manner it acts on peat. 

 Dung, however, mixed with earth, taken from rich arable fields which have been long 

 cultivated and manured, can have no effect as manure to other land that the same earth 

 and dung would not produce applied separately ; because there is generally no inert 

 matter in this description of earth to be rendered soluble. 



4594. Mixing dung, earth, and quick-lime together, can never be advisable ; because 

 quick-lime will render some of the most valuable parts of the dung insoluble. (See 2223.) 

 It will depend on the nature of soil or earth, whether even quick-lime only should be 

 mixed with it to form compost. If there be much inert vegetable matter in the earth, 

 the quick-lime will prepare it for becoming food for the plants it may be applied to ; but 

 if rich earth be taken from arable fields, the bottoms of dung-pits, or, in fact, if any soil 

 full of soluble matter be used, the quick-lime will decompose parts of this soluble matter, 

 combine with other parts, and render the whole mass less nourishing as manure to plants 

 or crops, than before the quick-lime was applied to it. Making composts, then, of rich 

 soil of this description, with dung or lime, mixed or separate, is evidently, to say no 

 more of it, a waste of time and labor. The mixtures of earths of this description with 

 dung produces no alteration in the component parts of the earth, where there is no inert 

 vegetable substances to be acted on ; and the mixture of earth full of soluble matter with 

 dung and quick-lime, in a mass together, has the worst effects, the quick-lime decom- 

 posing and uniting with the soluble matter of the earth, as well as that of the dung ; 

 thus rendering both, in every case, less efficient as manures, than if applied separately 

 from the quick-lime, and even the quick-lime itself inferior as manure for certain soils, than 

 if it had never been mixed with the dung and earth at all. {^Farmer s Magazine, vol. xv. 

 p. 351.) 



4595. Mixing dung in a state of fermentation with peat, or forming what in Scotland 

 are called meadow-bank middens (2177.) is a successful mode of increasing the quantity 

 of putrescent manure. The peat being dug and partially dried may either be carted 

 into the farm-yard and spread over the cattle court, there to remain till the whole is 

 carted out and laid upon a dunghill to ferment ; or it may be mixed up with the farm- 

 yard dung as carted out. If care be taken to watch the fermenting process, as the fire 

 of a clay kiln is watched, a few loads of dung may be made to rot many loads of peat. 

 Adding lime to such composts does not in the least promote fermentation, while it 

 renders the most valuable parts of the mass insoluble. Adding sand, ashes, or earth, by* 

 tending to consolidate the mass, will considerably impede the progress of fermentation* 



