182 Muck and Fresh Stable Manure. 



or muck ploughed in, has checked the fermentation; and the 

 •wetted straw has neither fermented nor rotted. Unless the mass 

 be reasonably rotted, it is impossible to spread it, so that the 

 animal matter can be equally distributed. It will lie in lumps 

 or aggregations of dung, which will ferment (especially if ap- 

 plied to summer crops) in a hot and dry season, violently ; whilst 

 the strawy parts are little affected. Your crop will grow uneven, 

 and bunchy in spots which will fall. And thus I have, in nume- 

 rous instances, far overbalancing those to the contrary, found 

 the fact to be. The mischiefs attending it have passed under 

 my frequent observation. The account of the rationale of mil- 

 dews, smut, &c. given in our second volume, page 160, &c. agrees 

 with my frequent experience. The hot dung, or indeed any 

 stimulating manure, promotes, in warm days, rapid and over- 

 abundant circulation of sap, which, being extravasated and check- 

 ed by chilly nights, coagulates, feculates, and rots. Insects I have 

 seen in countless numbers on such extravasated sap. Low or 

 damp situations are most adapted to chill and check the circula- 

 tion, and in them mildews are therefore more frequent ; but they 

 are not exclusively subject to them. Those who soil, and for that 

 purpose cut their grass and weeds before maturity of the seed, or 

 apply their muck in drill crops, kept clean by frequent hoeing 

 or harrowing, have the best chance of success against the growth 

 of weeds, and possibly on other accounts. I am in hopes, that, 

 if (although unintentionally on my part) I rouse up antagonists 

 to my practice ; be their motives what they may ; or set to work 

 candid and intelligent inquirers ; some settled results will be es- 

 tablished, on a subject on which differences both of opinion and 

 practice have existed, as long as my memory enables me to re- 

 collect. If this be the consequence, I shall be gratified, be those 

 results either favourable or contradictory to my individual opi- 

 nion or experience. Farmers of wet clay soils will be the most 

 successful with hot muck ; especially if they copy Mr, Gregg's 

 practice, as related in a note in our second volume, pages 71, 72. 

 But, in his essay on the subject, I find his dung undergoes a 

 reasonable fermentation before it is applied. 



Anxious only for practical truth, and never contending for 

 victory in opinion, I am not disposed to enter into controversy 



