FARM- YARD MANURE. 



FARM-YARD MANURE. 



particular; in his description of fertilizers, he 

 mentions with common manure, ashes (Georg. 

 1. i. v. 80). Pumice-stone and shells (1. ii. v. 

 346350, and 350358). Varro (c. 38, 1. i.) 

 mentions many kinds of animal manure, and 

 is particularly minute in his enumeration of 

 the dung of birds, and includes even that of 

 blackbirds and thrushes kept in aviaries. Co- 

 lumella (1. ii. c. 5) advises the cultivator not 

 to carry out to the field more dung than the 

 labourers can cover with the soil the same 

 day, as the exposure to the sun does it consi- 

 derable injury ; and he enumerates (1. ii. c. 15), 

 as well-known fertilizers, night-soil the excre- 

 ments of birds and sheep, urine (especially for 

 apple-trees and vines), dregs of oil, the excre- 

 ments of cattle, of the ass, the goat, of pigs ; 

 ashes, chopped stalks of the lupine leaves, of 

 trees, brambles, &c., and mud from sewers or 

 ditches. 



Of the early inhabitants of Britain, Pliny 

 tells us (b. xvii. c. 6, 7, 8), that they highly 

 valued the use of marl for particular soils, but 

 on other lands they never employed it. We 

 are told that they grew corn, and lived in 

 houses thatched with straw, which would ne- 

 cessarily require an attention to fertilizers. 

 They had also, according to Stralio (Geogra- 

 phy, p. 306), gardens, which could not have 

 been cultivated, neither could their apple 

 orchards have flourished, without manure. 

 The Roman invasion taught the original inha- 

 bitants better modes of using fertilizing mate- 

 rials ; but their Saxon successors, in all pro- 

 bability, knew less of agriculture than the 

 natives. War and fighting was their profes- 

 sion ; they held the husbandman in much con- 

 tempt. The confusion attendant upon British, 

 Saxon, and Danish inroads, still farther retard- 

 ed, in England, the progress of agriculture, 

 which never prospers in a poor disturbed 

 count ry. The very laws made in those days 

 for its encouragement show to what a low ebb 

 the art of cultivating the land was then re- 

 duced. Thus it was provided, that if any one 

 laid dung upon a field, the law allowed him, if 

 the owner of it consented, to use it for one 

 year; and if the quantity of manure conveyed 

 was in considerable quantities, so as t-> render 

 it necessary to employ a cart, he was then en- 

 titled to use the land for three years ; and if 

 any person, with the consent of the owner of 

 the soil, folded his cattle on it for the space of a 

 year, he was then entitled to cultivate it for 

 four years for his own benefit. (Leges Wallitt, 

 p. 298.) All these laws were evidently for the 

 purpose of encouraging the better manuring 

 of the land ; but the necessity of such an in- 

 ducement betrays the poverty of the farmers 

 of those days, and the insufficiency of their 

 live-stock. In the middle ages little was done 

 for agriculture. The monks, after the intro- 

 duction of Christianity, were the most learned 

 and skilful in the best modes of applying ma- 

 nures. They early excelled in their gardens. 

 The population of England in those days, how- 

 ever, was too limited to require the cultivation 

 of inferior soils. 



In 1570, Conrad Heresbach, a learned Ger- 

 man, published his four books of husbandry, 

 which were translated by Googe : he there 



mentions the several descriptions of manure 

 employed in his days. His book is a strange 

 mixture of good sense and superstition. He 

 speaks of the dung of poultry and pigeons with 

 much approbation ; but reprobates the use of 

 that of geese and ducks. Human fceces, he 

 says, when mixed with rubbish, is good ; but. 

 by itself, is too hot. Urine he commends 

 highly for apple trees and vines. Of the dung 

 of animals, he mentions that of the ass as first 

 in order for fertilizing effects ; then that of 

 sheep, goats, oxen, horses ; lastly, swine, "very 

 hurtful to come, but used in some places for 

 gardens." Green manure was used in his 

 days. " Where they have no store of cattle, 

 they used to mend their ground with straw, 

 fern, and the stalks of lupines, and the branches, 

 laid together in some ditch. Hereunto you may 

 cast ashes, the filth of sinks and privies, &c." 

 And again he says, " The weeds growing about 

 willow trees and fern, &c., you may gather and 

 lay under your sheep." He speaks of the 

 practice of placing turfs and heath clods in 

 heaps, with dung; much in the same way as 

 Lord Meadowbank has advised with peat. He 

 also advises the placing of the same turf-par- 

 ings in sheep-folds. " This is also to be noted," 

 says our author, " that the doung that hath lyen 

 a yeere is best for corne, for it both is of suffi- 

 cient strength and breedeth less weedes ; but, 

 upon meadowe and pasture you must laye the 

 newest, because it brings most grasse, in Feb- 

 ruarie, the raoone increasing, for that is the 

 best time to cause increase of grasse." When, 

 however, the manure is applied for corn lands, 

 " looke that the winde be westerly, and the 

 moone in the wane." 



The manure commonly furnished by the 

 farm-yard is compounded of a mixture of ani- 

 maj and vegetable substances, of the putrefy- 

 ing straw of various descriptions of grain, 

 mixed with the excrements and urine of cattle, 

 horses, and swine. The mixture forms no new 

 substance, neither does the putrefaction which 

 ensues add to the bulk of the dung ; on the 

 contrary, it causes a considerable loss of 

 weight. Neither is the manure produced equal 

 to the amount of food the stock consume. " If," 

 says Dr. Sprengel " we weigh the dry food 

 given the cattle to eat, and also dry and weigh 

 the resulting excrements, we shall find the 

 weight of the latter considerably less than that 

 of the former. Block, who has lately made a 

 great number of experiments on this circum- 

 stance, found that 100 Ibs. of rye-straw yielded 

 only 43 Ibs. of dried excrement (liquid and 

 solid), while 100 Ibs. of hay gave 44 Ibs. Food 

 which contains many watery parts furnished, 

 as may be naturally supposed, a still smaller 

 proportion. Thus, for instance, 100 Ibs. of po- 

 tatoes gave only 14 Ibs.; 100 Ibs. of mangel- 

 wurzel, 6 Ibs.; and 100 Ibs. of green clover, 9 

 Ibs. of excrement." (Transl. by Mr. Hudson, 

 Jour. Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. vi. p. 460.) 



It will assist us very materially in our exa- 

 minations of various modes of preparing and 

 applying manure, if we first examine its che- 

 mical composition ; and for that purpose I will 

 give the analysis of straw and the faeces and 

 j urine of animals. 



1000 parts of dry wheat straw being burnt, 



455 



