ARTIFICIAL MANURE. 209 



This does not differ much from fresh cow-dung, so far as 

 salts, geine, and water are concerned. The salts of lime are 

 actually about the same, while the alumina, oxide of iron, mag- 

 nesia in the silicates added to the salts of lime, make the total 

 amount of salts, in round numbers, equal that of cow-dung. 



If the bulks of these are compared, it will be found that, 

 at 90 lbs. per bushel, full measure, and 103 bushels being 

 allowed to a cord, each contains and weighs as follows, in 

 pounds : 



Weight. 



Dung, . . . 9289 

 No. 9 peat of table, 9216 

 No. 10 " " 9216 



A cord of pond mud, (No. 11,) weighs when dug, 6117 

 lbs., and contains solid matter, 3495 lbs., composed of geine, 

 495 lbs., of silicates and salts, 3005 lbs. The salts of lime 

 in pond mud are 2^ per cent. 



260. The salts and geine of a cord of peat are equal to 

 the manure of one cow for three months. It is certainly a 

 very curious coincidence of results, that nature herself should 

 have prepared a substance, whose agricultural value ap- 

 proaches so near cow-dung, the type of manures. This sub- 

 ject may have been now sufficiently explained. Departing 

 from cow-dung and wandering through all the varieties of 

 animal and vegetable manures, we land in a peat-bog. The 

 substance under our feet is analyzed, and found to be cow- 

 dung, without its musky breath of cow odor, or the power 

 of generating ammonia, except in some varieties of peat. 

 These always heat when piled. The various transformations 

 of geine have not ceased in peat which naturally ferments, 

 such is always preferable in agriculture. But generally the 

 power of forming ammonia has ceased to be active. That 



