ANIMAL MANURES. 1 09 



body, undergoes, is changed into a volatile salt (13) termed 

 carbonate of ammonia : while the solid excrement also affords 

 nitrogen, and the compounds of phosphoric acid — which are 

 so valuable for the food of plants. In these excrements^ Nature 

 supplies 2is with all that our fields require, to produce the 

 richest crops. 



155. Value of Urine and Night-Soil. — It may be said, 

 that experience had taught our farmers the value of the excre- 

 ments of man, before chemistry had been directed to the im- 

 provement of agriculture; yet it remained for that science to 

 discover upon what their action depended, and, though it has 

 shown us that they contain the very ingredients upon which 

 plants live, how little have we, in this . country, profited by 

 this knowledge; urine is not merely neglected by the farmer; 

 — in all the large cities of the empire, how much money has 

 been expended to remove it expeditiously beyond our reach ! 

 There was a time when our farmers could afford to cart the 

 accumulated manure of their cattle to the sea-beach, to allow 

 the water to wash it away, and was formerly done by the 

 farmers on the coast of Antrim, — as is even yet practised 

 by the peasants on the banks of the "VVolga ; at present, they 

 collect the droppings of their cattle, and the litter of their 

 stables and cow-houses, in their farm-yards, and apply it to 

 their exhausted fields, after it has been exposed for months 

 to the air, and its most valuable parts washed out by the 

 rains. No wonder, then, that they must purchase foreign 

 manures, and expend money in supplying their fields with 

 the matters which they require, when the potash, the soda, 

 and other soluble inorganic matters of their manure heaps, 

 are thus neglected, and whole tons of fertilizing materials 

 drawn from their farms are sold to our cities, where they are 

 cai'elessly wasted, and allowed to pollute the atmosphere, and 

 generate disease I 



156. From what has been already said, (151) it is 

 evident, that the value of excrements for manure will vary 

 with the diet ; thus, the people of a district where much 

 animal food and bread are consumed, will afford a manure 

 richer in fertilizing ingredients than where the inhabitants 

 are poorly fed. On the continent, this is so well known by 

 experienced farmei'S, that they will give a higher price for 

 the house manure of certain districts, where the people use 

 animal food, than for that produced where the diet, for a 



