TOP-DRESSING WITH FERMENTING MANURES. 77 



§ 18. Of top-dressing with fermenting manures. 



If so large a waste occur in the farm-yard where the manure is 

 left long to ferment — can it be good husbandry to spread fermenting 

 manure as a permanent top-dressing ov«r the surface of the fields ? 

 This, also, is a question in regard to which different opinions are 

 entertained by practical men. 



That a considerable waste must attend this mode of application there 

 can be no doubt. Volatile matters will escape into the air and saline 

 substances may be washed away by the rains, and yet there are many 

 good practical farmers who consider this mode of applying such manure 

 to be in certain cases as profitable as any that can be adopted. Thus — 



1". It is common in spring to apply such a top-dressing to old pas- 

 ture or meadow lands, and the increased produce of food in the form of 

 grass or hay is believed to be equal, at least, to what would have been 

 obtained from the same quantity of manure employed in the raising 

 of turnips. Where such is really the case, experience decides the 

 question, and pronounces that notwithstanding the loss which must 

 occur, this m.ode of applying the manure is consistent with good 

 husbandry. But if the quantity or market value of the food raised by 

 a ton of manure applied in this way is not equal to what it would 

 have raised in turnips and corn, then it may as safely be said that 

 the most economical method of employing it has not been adopted. 



But theory also throws some mteresting light upon this question. 



Old grass lands can only be manured by top-dressings. And if 

 they cannot continue, and especially such as are meadowed, to yield 

 an average produce, unless there be now and then added to the soil 

 some of those same substances which are carried off in the crop, it 

 appears to be almost necessary that farm-yard dung should now and 

 then be applied in some form or other. It is true that hay or straw 

 or long dung contains all the elements which the growing grass re- 

 quires, but if spread on the surface of the field and then allowed to 

 ferment and decay,, the loss would probably be still greater than when, 

 for this purpose, it is collected into heaps or strewed in the farm-yard. 

 Thus the usual practice of laying on the manure in a highly fer- 

 mented state may be the most economical. 



2°. Again, where the turnip crop is raised in whole or in part by 

 means of bones only, of rape dust, or of other artificial manures, as they 

 are called^ it is usual to expend a large proportion of the farm-yard dung 

 in top-dressing the succeeding crop of clover. Thus the land obtains 

 two manurings in the course of the four years' rotation — bones or rape- 

 dust with the turnips — and fermented dung with the clover. This 

 second application increases the clover crop in some districts one-fourth 

 and the after-crop of wheat or barley very considerably also. [Such 

 is the case upon some of the fiirms in the Vale of the Tame (Stafford- 

 shire,) where the turnips are raised with rape-dust, and wheat follows 

 the clover.] 



Here, also, it is clear, that if manure be necessary to the clover, it 

 can only be applied in the form of a top-dressing. But why is it ne- 

 cessary, as experience says, and why should farm-yard manure, which 

 is known to suffer waste, be applied as a top-dressing rather than 



