MANURE. 



153 



Others have found 



Water, .... 

 Matter soluble in water, . 

 Matter soluble in alcohol, 

 Vegetable fibre, 

 Salts, .... 



68.74 

 4.40 

 2.82 



16.26 

 8.13 



100.35 



Girardm. 



The salts were composed of phosphate of lime and mag- 

 nesia, carbonate of lime, silicate of potash, common salt and 

 silex. 



The nitrogen is abundant, and the amount of matter con- 

 taining this, nearly three-fifths greater than that of cattle- 

 dung. The whole is finer divided, and hence speedily 

 putrefies, and evolves ammonia. It is thus one of the hot- 

 test of all manures. But containing, as it does, little water, 

 and being in fine compact balls, air cannot act upon it as it 

 would upon cow-dung. Hence, unless moisture is present, 

 sheep-dung undergoes little change. Great care is required 

 in its use. Its ammonia is abundant; hence, if uncombined 

 with geine, it burns up the crops. Hence, when there is 

 little geine, little sheep-dung must be used. Where the 

 soil is wet, and that too with little vegetable matter in it, 

 there decomposition rapidly occurs, and the virtue of the 

 dung, its ammonia, is lost. 



It is said that 1000 sheep, folded on an acre of ground one 

 day, would manure it suflficiently to feed 1001 sheep, if their 

 manure could all be saved. So that, by this process, land 

 which can, the first year, feed only 1000 sheep, may the next 

 year, by their own droppings, feed 1365. So said Ander- 

 son, forty years ago (Rural Essays). Sprengel allows that 

 the manure of 1400 sheep, for one day, is equal to manuring 

 7* 



