1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



T5 



the Earl of Moray's meadow fetched fifiy-seven 

 pounds per acre. 



"Abcmt forty acres of the Craigintinny lands 

 were formed into catch- work water-meadow ho- 

 Ibre the year 1800, which comprises, what is 

 call Pillieside JJank old meadows, and is gene- 

 rally let at a rent of fi-om twenty to thirty pounds 

 j)er acre. In the spring of 1821, thirty acres of 

 waste land called the Freegate Whins, and ten 

 ticres of poor sandy soil, were iev^elled and formed 

 into irrigated meadow, at an expense of one thou- 

 sand pounds. They now bring from fifteen to 

 twenty pounds an acre per annum, and may be 

 much improved. 



''Tiiis," continues Mr. Stephens, "is one of the 

 Ttiost beneficial agricultural improvements ever 

 undertaken; for the whole of the Freegate Whins 

 'is composed of nothing but sand deposited from 

 time to time by the action of the waves of the 

 •Bea. Never was one thousand pounds more hap- 

 pily spent in agriculture; it not only required a 

 •common sewer to bring about this ffreat change; 

 'but a resolution in the proprietor to launch out his 

 icapital on an experiment of a soil of such a nature. 

 fOne hundred and ten acres of Mr. Miller's mea- 

 'dows in 1827 gave a clear profit of two thousand 

 •and ten pounds; the yearly expense of keeping 

 ^these meadows in repair is from ten to fifteen 

 ^shillings per acre, which is more than double the 

 expense of keeping water meadows in repair in 

 general; for the watering of them is not only 

 through the winter season, but the water is put on 

 them for one or two days together, immediately 

 after every cuttmg of the grass, throughout the 

 whole of the season." 



It must not be forgotten in the consideration of 

 these very important tiicts, the northern situation 

 of the good city of Edinburgh; for it is in the 

 same latitude as St. Petersburgh, and therefore 

 the warmth of the meadows around it, and the 

 consequent rapid growth of the grass, as com- 

 pared with those of the valley of the Thames, 

 must be under the same circumstance greatly in- 

 ferior. 



The forcing quality of liquid manure, as shown 

 by the constant result of irrigating with common 

 water, and as still more strrikingly confirmed by 

 the use of the Edinburgh town drainage wa- 

 ters, is entirely confirmed by the practice of Mr. 

 Knight in the employment of liquid manure for 

 fruit trees, which 1 cannot give better than in his 

 own words. 



' I have shown in a former communication," 

 says this able vegetable physiologist, "that a seed- 

 ling plum-stock, growing in a small pot, attained 

 the height of nine feet seven inches in a single 

 season; which is, I believe, a much greater height 

 than any seedling tree of that species was ever 

 seen to attain in the open soil. But the quantity 

 of the earth, which a small pot contains, soon be- 

 comes exhausted relatively to one kind of plant, 

 though it may be still fertile relatively to others; 

 and the size of the pot cannot be cha'nged sufii- 

 ciently often to remedy this loss of fertility; and if 

 it were ever so frequently changed, the mass of 

 mould, which each successive emission of roots 

 would enclose, must remain the same. Manure, 

 therefore, can probably be most beneficially given 

 in a purely liquid state; and the quantity which 

 trees growing in pots have thus taken, under my 

 care, without any injury, and with the oreatest 



good eflijct, has much cxceded every expectation 

 I had formed. 



"I have for some years appropriated a forcing- 

 house, at Downton to the |)urposes of experiment 

 solely upon fi-uit trees; which as I have frequent 

 occasion to change the subjects on which I have to 

 operate, are confined in pots. These at first were 

 supplied with water, in which about one-tenth by 

 measure of the dung of pigeons, or domestic poul- 

 try, had been infused; and the quantity of these 

 substances (generally the latter) was increased 

 from one-tenth to one-fourth. The water, afier 

 standing forty-eight hours, acquired a color con- 

 siderably deeper than that of porter, and in this 

 state it was drawn ofi' clear, and employed to feed 

 trees of the vine, the mulberry, the peach, and 

 other plants; a second quantity of water was then 

 applied, and afterwards used in the same manner; 

 when the manure was changed, and the same pro- 

 cess repeated. 



"The vine and mulberry tree being very gross 

 feeders, were not likely to be soon injured by thia 

 treatment; but I expected the peach tree, which is 

 often greatly injured by an excess ol' manure in a 

 solid state, to give eariy indications of being over 

 fed. Contrary, however, to my expectations, the 

 peach tree maintained at the end of two years the 

 most healthy and luxuriant appearance imagina- 

 ble, and produced fruit in the lastseason in greater 

 perfection than I had ever previously been able to 

 obtain from it. Some seedling plants had then ac- 

 quired, at eighteen months old, (though the whole 

 of their roots had been confined to half a square 

 foot of mould.) more than eleven feet in height, 

 with numerous branches, and have afforded a 

 most abundant and vigorous blossom in the pre- 

 sent spring, which has set remarkably well; and 

 those trees which had been most abundantly sup- 

 plied with manure, have displayed the greatest 

 degree of health and luxuriance. A singleorange 

 tree was subjected to the same mode of treat- 

 ment, and grew with equal comparative vio-or, 

 and appeared to be as much benefited by alnin- 

 dant food, as even the vine and the mulberry 

 tree.' 



As it is, therefore, evident from the concurring 

 practice of not only the talented agriculturists of 

 our own country, but of those of all parts of the 

 vvorid, from China to Egypt, from the low lands 

 of northern Italy to those of Holland, that the 

 value of any li(]uid manure is as great as that of 

 the more solid; is it not more desirable, even in a 

 national point of view., that every facility should 

 be given to its collectioo. and. disposal? And if the 

 drainage, from a small country-town is distinctly 

 found to render even the passing waters, of a river 

 moref(3rlilizing to the meadows on its banks, how 

 strongly does this fact show the immense values of 

 the fluid matters hourly wasted in the huge drain- 

 aire of London^ none of! which has hitherto 

 been employed (or the purposes of irrigation? and 

 should not some plan be speedily devLsed by which 

 this rich liquid portion may be made available, if 

 only on the great marshes of Essex and Kent? 

 Let it not he concluded that the earthy, animal, 

 and vegetable matters broyght down by flood wa- 

 ters of large rivers, are of a small aggreirate 

 amount, for such is not the case; all the extensive 

 marshy country at the mouth of the M ississippi, has 

 been (brmed by the deposiies of that mishty river, 

 aiuUhe same remark applies to the Ganges, au<.$ 



