FARM-YARD MANURE. 



FARM-YARD*MANURE. 



of the soluble salts are usually washed away 

 by the rain, or are suffered to drain away into 

 ditches, whilst a considerable quantity of the 

 salts of ammonia and some of the carbon are 

 commonly lost by being either over-heated, or 

 by being allowed to remain too long in a putre- 

 fying state. 



Farm-yard manure has a very considerable 

 attraction for the moisture of the atmosphere : 

 some experiments to ascertain its extent are 

 given under the head MANUBE. 



There have been many arguments and much 

 difference of opinion among cultivators, with 

 regard to the advantages of employing dung in 

 a fresh or in a putrid state ; and, as is too often 

 the case, both parties have run into extremes, 

 the one side contending for the propriety of 

 employing it quite fresh from the farm-yard, 

 the other contending that it cannot well be too 

 rotten. The mode employed by Lord Leicester 

 is the medium between these equally erroneous 

 extremes. He found that the employment of 

 the fresh dung certainly made the dung go 

 much farther ; but then a multitude of the seeds 

 of various weeds were carried on to the land 

 along with the manure. He has, therefore, 

 since used his compost when only in a half 

 putrefied -aate (calkd short dung by farmers); 

 and hence the seeds are destroyed by the 

 effects of the putrefaction, ami the dung still 

 extends much farther than if suffered to re- 

 main until quite putrefied. 



Putrefaction cannot go on without the pre- 

 sence of moisture. Where water is entirely 

 absent there can be no putrefaction; and 

 hence many farmers have adopted the practice 

 of pumping the drainage of their farm-yards 

 over their dung-heaps ; others invariably place 

 them in low damp situations. This liquid por- 

 tion cannot be too highly valued by the culti- 

 vator. The soil where a dunghill has lain in 

 a field is always distinguished by a rank luxu- 

 riance in the succeeding crop, even if the 

 earth beneath, to the depth of six inches, is 

 removed and spread with the dunghill. 



The controversy, too, which once so keenly 

 existed, as to the ttate of fermentation in which 

 dung should be used on the land, has now 

 pretty well subsided. There is no donbt but 

 that it cannot be applied more advantageously 

 than in as fresh a state as possible, consistent 

 with the attainment of a tolerably clean hus- 

 bandry, and the destruction of the seeds of 

 weeds, grubs, &c., which are always more or 

 less present in farm-yard dung. These are 

 the only evils to be apprehended from the de- 

 sirable employment of this manure in the 

 freshest state ; for otherwise the loss of its 

 most valuable constituents commences as 

 soon as ever fermentation begins. This was 

 long since demonstrated by Davy, whose ex- 

 periments I have often seen repeated and 

 varied. He says, "I filled a large retort, 

 capable of containing three pints of water, 

 with some hot fermenting manure, consisting 

 principally of the litter and dung of cattle ; I 

 adapted a small receiver to the retort, and con- 

 nected the whole with a mercurial pneumatic 

 apparatus, so as to collect the condensible and 

 elastic fluids which might arise from the dung. 

 Th receiver soon became lined with dew, and 

 58 



drops began, in a few hours, to trickle down 

 the sides of it. Elastic fluid likewise was 

 generated; in three days thirty-five cubical 

 inches had been formed, which, when analyzed, 

 were found to contain twenty-one cubical 

 inches of carbonic acid; the remainder was 

 hydrocarbonate, mixed with some azote, pro- 

 bably no more than existed in the common air 

 in the receiver. The fluid matter collected in 

 the receiver at the same time amounted to 

 nearly half an ounce. It had a saline taste, 

 and a disagreeable smell, and contained some 

 acetate and carbonate of ammonia. Finding 

 such products given off from fermenting litter, 

 I introduced the beak of another retort, filled 

 with similar dung very hot at the time, in the 

 soil amongst the roots of some grass in the 

 border of a garden ; in less than a week a very 

 distinct effect was produced on the grass: 

 upon the spot exposed to the influence of the 

 matter disengaged in fermentation it grew with 

 much more luxuriance than the grass in any 

 other part of the garden." (Lectures, p. 204.) 



Nothing, indeed, appears at first sight so 

 simple as the manufacture and collection of 

 farm-yard dung; and yet there are endless 

 sources of error into which the cultivator is 

 sure to fall, if he is not ever vigilant in their 

 management. The late Mr. Francis Blakie, 

 in his valuable tract upon the management of 

 farm-yard manure, dwells upon several of 

 these ; he particularly condemns the practice 

 "of keeping the dung arising from different 

 descriptions of animals in separate heaps or 

 departments, and applying them to the land 

 without intermixture. It is customary," he 

 adds " to keep the fattening neat cattle in 

 yards by themselves ; and the manure thus 

 produced is of good quality, because the ex- 

 crement of such cattle is richer than that of 

 lean ones. Fattening cattle are fed with oil- 

 cake, corn, Swedish turnips, or some other 

 rich food ; and the refuse and waste of such 

 food thrown about the yard increases the value 

 of the manure : it also attracts the pigs to the 

 yard. These rout the straw and dung about, in 

 search of grains of corn, bits of Swedish turnips, 

 and other food : by which means the manure in 

 the yard becomes more intimately mixed, and 

 is proportionally increased in value. The feed- 

 ing-troughs and cribs in the yard should, for 

 obvious reasons, be shifted frequently." 



"The horse dung," continues Blakie, "is 

 usually thrown out at the stable doors, and 

 there accumulates in large heaps. It is some- 

 times spread a little about, but more generally 

 not at all, unless where necessary for the con- 

 venience of ingress and egress, or perhaps to 

 allow the water to drain away from the stable 

 door. Horse dung, lying in such heaps, very 

 soon ferments, and heats to an excess; the 

 centre of the heap is charred or burned to a 

 dry white substance, provincially termed fire- 

 fanged. Dung in this state loses from 50 to 75 

 per cent, of its value. The diligent and atten- 

 tive farmer will guard against such profligate 

 waste of property, by never allowing the dung 

 to accumulate in any considerable quantity at 

 the stable doors. The dung from the feeding 

 hog-sties should also be carted and spread 

 about the store cattle-yard, in the same manner 

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