168 MANURE. 



may be here set before agricultural and sanitary commit- 

 tees. 



It had long been known that sugar-house black, the oone- 

 charcoal refuse from the sugar refinery, was a valuable 

 manure, having properties which could not be attributed 

 solely to its bone-dust, or phosphate of lime. Something 

 was due to the charcoal, something to the blood added to 

 clarify, and something to the matter extracted by both from 

 the crude sugar. A constant and gentle production of am- 

 monia goes on in sugar-refinery bone-black, giving that a 

 value superior to its per centage of ammonia. The porous 

 charcoal induces by condensation the formation of ammonia 

 from the air, and by changes occurring in the extractive 

 matter, and the charcoal itself It was attempted to imitate 

 refinery -black, by mixing charred turf, or peat, or even 

 mould, with the water of city sewers. This, under the name 

 of " animalized black," proved a powerful manure, very like 

 refinery-black, affording like that, an enduring and constant 

 gentle evolution of ammonia. Carbonized earth, charred 

 peat, charcoal, or mould, mixed with urine, and the liquid 

 portion of the settling vats of poudrette manufactories, 

 formed also a manure similar to sugar-house black. 



The greatest improvement yet introduced into the pou- 

 drette processes, depends on the above principles. The 

 whole contents of Parisian vaults are now at once mixed 

 with charred matters, by which they are completely deodo- 

 rized, and easily reduced to a dry state, in which they may 

 be pulverized, barelled, transported, without offensive exha- 

 lations. The substance selected for charring should contain, 

 like peat, or turf, or swamp muck, or pond mud, abundance 

 of vegetable remains. These several substances are prefer- 

 able. Vegetable mould or loam charred will answer, and, 

 when previously to being charred, these are mixed with saw- 



