Muck and Fresh Stable Manure. 173 



more violent it is, the nearer it approaches, in its effects, 

 to actual combustion. Carbon, both soluble and insolu- 

 ble, is a component part of all vegetables ; facts, familiar 

 to practical farmers, support the conclusion, that soluble 

 carbon is much the most efficacious. By a slow process 

 of fermentation, the soluble is gradually detached from 

 the woody fibre, and held in solution in the water : but 

 when the decomposition is more rapid, (as will always 

 be more or less the case, when it is effected in a mass,) 

 there is a large quantity of carbonic acid gass formed : as 

 the water is capable of holding but a small portion of it, 

 the rest, rendered buoyant by the heat, must rise into the 

 atmosphere, where every breeze (and not the exhaling 

 powers of the sun) must bear it away : was not this the 

 case, there would, excluding water, be but little differ- 

 ence between the weight of the materials, before and after 

 fermentation ; but the loss in virtue is much more than 

 proportionate to the loss in weight ; for it is well known, 

 that in proportion as vegetables approach the state of 

 woody fibre, they are difficult of decomposition. Fer- 

 mentation must therefore commence on those parts con- 

 taining soluble carbon : the greater part of this loss was 

 in soluble carbon, that would never have been converted 

 into carbonic acid gass, had the raw materials been com- 

 mitted to the soil. Every application, that has passed 

 under my observation, has gone to corroborate these 

 sentiments. I have rotted dung in covered repositories, 

 both in a large and small quantity, conducting the fer- 

 mentation by compression and irrigation, in the best 

 manner that I was capable of conceiving and effecting ; 

 applied it and muck, as voided from the stable, in quan 



