On the Agriculture of England^ Manures^ ^c. 93 



yards, or heaped up in the fields for that purpose ; and 

 if farmers did not suffer their judgments to be biased, 

 either by reasoning, or prejudices imbibed from early 

 practice, their organs of sense would supply sufficient 

 means to determine the subject; for the sight and smell 

 of a fermenting dunghill, would quickly demonstrate 

 the course that should be taken with this invaluable 

 article, for when fermentation takes place beneath the 

 soil, the fructifying and exciting properties of the -ma- 

 nure are diffused through the whole mass, and nothing 

 is lost which could have been possibly saved. You 

 have witnessed the rapid improvement, and luxuriant 

 crops which have been obtained on the farm (from 

 which I have lately removed,) by this method of using 

 manure, joined with a regular system of convertible 

 husbandry and soiling, and are capable of judging 

 whether I may with propriety recommend the prac- 

 tice to others. Although a large share of this improve- 

 ment was obtained by the addition of soiling, yet inde- 

 pendent of that invaluable practice, (which, neither the 

 population, capital or inclination of this country ap- 

 pear to favour,) convertible husbandry, joined with 

 a well regulated system of making, saving and apply- 

 ing manure, promises immense advantages ; and every 

 grade of soil, from blowing sands, to the most adhe- 

 sive, cold clay grounds, may be much more profitably 

 managed, as well as sooner improved, through the 

 medium of that practice, than by any other method 

 which has yet been proposed.* 



* Well watered meadows, also, grounds inaccessible to the 

 plough, and those subject to land floods or inundations, are excepted. 



