vi Notices for a Young Farmer, 



II. Hale into your yard, a sufficiency of every prutrescible 

 substance, within reasonable distance; and often clean up 

 your muck. Have a pen or stercorary of solid masonry, with 

 its bottom paved, or composed of sound and well compacted 

 clay. Your manure gathered into your pen or stercorary, 

 should be secured against the treading of cattle, which, by 

 excluding air, prevents the necessary fermentation ; a rea- 

 sonable degree whereof is essential, although when excessive, 

 it should be checked. Sir H. Davy's discussion on this sub- 

 ject, shews one side of the question ; and experience must 

 teach the other. Mix Earth with your fermenting litter, or 

 muck, rather than Lime; until the fermentation be sufficiently 

 advanced. If your stercorary be roofed or thatched, it will 

 be the more perfect. Have pits, secured from leakages, to 

 collect the drainings of dung ; and the urine of Horses and 

 Cattle ; — the most valuable excrements. Human urine is also 

 surprisingly beneficial ; and generally, (as it regards rural 

 economy,) wasted. Prejudice and ridicule are alive, when 

 it is asserted, that it is preferred by Horses and Cattle to 

 Salt ; and is, to them, salutary as a medicine, as well as a 

 condiment, promotive of health, and consequent profit.* Our 

 Germans have been long acquainted with its uses ; and a late 

 publication in England, shews its powers and efficacy, as 

 well for domestic Animals, as for fertilizing the soil ; when 

 diluted, and judiciously applied. Immense collections of it 

 might be made ; not only in Cities, Towns, Inns, and Ma- 

 nufactories, but on every Farm. Human Ordure, or Mght- 

 Soil, however contemptuously regarded by us, has been long 



* Many years ago, a German woman kept Cows, in a town in Maryland ; and 

 derived a plentiful support from the sale of Milk, Cream, and Butter. Her 

 Cows were remarkable for their goodly appearance ; and every body preferred 

 dealing with her, to being supplied by other Cow-keepers. Envy was excited ; 

 and she was narrowly watched. At length it was discovered, by her rivals, 

 that she daily emptied the contents of the Urinal, into the food of her Cows. 

 She acknowledged this to have been the magical cause of the superiority of 

 her Butter and Cream. But when the secret was discovered, she could sell no 

 more of the celebrated articles, which had heretofore been so universall) ad- 

 mired. It is only by stealth, thai such prejudices can be prevented, or subdued 

 by a conquest over the imagination. 



