SPREADING OF MANURE. 265 



d to the times of carrying it out. They take advantage of every 

 6 moment that occurs for performing this necessary vi^ork, which 

 i; trifling advantage ; it is the practice which we follow at Be- 

 chei ronn — we carry out our manure as we find opportunity. The 

 lands which are to be manured in the spring have frequently their 

 supply carried out during winter when the frost enables us to get 

 upon them. The dung first shot down in little heaps, at regular 

 distances, is afterwards spread as equally as possible, frequently 

 even upon the snow ; and I have never seen any ill effect from th** 

 practice. The custom which some farmers have of keeping dung in 

 large heaps in the field, in order that it may be all spread and work- 

 ed under at the same time by the plough, is certainly objectionable ; 

 the places upon which these heaps have been laid are evidently too 

 strongly manured ; no manure, save that which is quite fresh and 

 very long i.i the straw, or which it is proposed to spread immediate- 

 ly in furrows, ought ever to be laid down in large heaps upon the 

 field. 



The method which I have recommended, of leaving manure spread 

 over the surface of the fields exposed to the weather for several 

 weeks or months, has been severely criticised. By such exposure, 

 it has been said the dung must lose its volatile elements, and the 

 rain must wash out and carry off its more soluble parts. Influenced 

 by such fears, some farmers do not spread their dung until the mo- 

 ment of ploughing it in. Such diversity of opinion among practical 

 men, all personally interested in deriving the greatest possible amount 

 of advantage from the manure they employ, must not be thought of 

 lightly : when different modes of procedure in agriculture are the 

 subjects of debate, we must not be in too great a hurry to come to 

 general conclusions. Climate is not without its influence in the 

 question which now engages us. In Alsace, experience has pro- 

 nounced in favor of the practice followed ; but in other countries 

 there may be very good reasons for not proceeding in the same way. 

 In Alsace, where the annual depth of rain amounts to 26.7 inches, 

 no more than 4.3 inches fall during the three months of December, 

 January, and February. In a district where a larger quantity of 

 rain falls during the winter, the manure would probably suflfer from 

 the procedure followed in Alsace. 



The quality of the manure must also be taken into consideration. 

 A dunghill which contained a large proportion of carbonate of am- 

 monia, which exhaled a strong smell of volatile alkali, would infal- 

 libly lose in value by any unnecessary or prolonged exposure to the 

 ail ; hut the loss becomes insignificant when the manure, by good 

 managemert, is brought to contain but a small proportion of volatile 

 ammoniacal salts, as happens with manures which have received 

 additions of gypsum ; or otherwise, when the dung-heap has been 

 carried out fresh, and at a season so cold that it can be kept without 

 material change until the period arrives for spreading it over or 

 working it into the ground. When the rains are not excessive, 

 the soluble parts of manure spread upon the ground penetrate and 

 remain in it«» upper stratum, exactly as happens when, instead of 



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