AS A FERTILIZER. 



199 



and yielded as g'reat a crop as tliose manured Avith the 

 stable-manure." Sucli a preparation of charcoal, althoug-h 

 mixed with other substances, the farmer will find very 

 valuable in a variety of ways. It would constitute an 

 excellent foundation for dung-lieaps or sheep-folds, since 

 charcoal very extensively absorbs the g-aseous matters of 

 putrefaction; and, when used in considerable proportions, 

 would also imbibe all the drainag-e matters of the sheep, or 

 other live stock. It answers well, also, for a covering for 

 dung-hills j but to this end, ag-ain let me remind the farmer, 

 that he must only carhomze or char his peat or turf; he 

 must, to accomplish this, by covering- the burning- heap with 

 earth or g-reen turf, retard, reg'ulate, and reduce the extent 

 of the combustion as much as possible. It is to the presence 

 of a considerable portion of carbon in the ashes of a land 

 pared and burnt, that the advantag'es of this now nearly 

 exploded operation may be attributed. The ashes of a pared 

 and burnt chalk soil from Kent contained four to five per 

 cent, of carbon, that of a lig-ht Leicestershire soil contained 

 six per cent., and that of a stiff clay soil from Mount's Bay, 

 in Cornwall, contained eight per cent, of carbon. 



The evidence, then, is abundant in favour of charcoal as a 

 fertilizer. At such a period as this, too, when starvation 

 appears to threaten, if it has not already visited, a larg-e 

 portion of the population of Ireland, it seems a most oppor- 

 tune and desirable period for the extensive and immediate 

 preparation of charcoal from the abounding- bogs of the 

 sister kingdom. Let, then, the attempt be jjromptly made ; 

 let every owner of bog or peat land make some effort in this 

 way ; and, in so doing, such real friends of their country 

 may rely th-at they will thus not only serve very materially 

 their at present unwillingly idle neighbours, without bur- 

 thening themselves, but that they will moreover enrich their 

 own estates, while they promote the comfort and the im- 

 proved cultivation of the land of their birth. 



Farmer's Magazine, Nov. 1846. 



