LIQUID MANURE. 



trated by M. Saussure (Rech. 150), I have 

 since confirmed, by a variety of experiments 

 of my own. 



The soluble matters or liquid manures con- 

 sumed by plants are sometimes imbibed by 

 their roots unaltered ; in other cases they are 

 decomposed during their absorption. The 

 earths, gypsum, and other salts, are instances 

 of the first class ; oil, and other purely animal 

 matters, of the last. Davy found that some 

 plants of mint, which he forced to vegetate in 

 sugar and water, apparently absorbed the sugar 

 unaltered, for they yielded a considerably 

 larger proportion of a sweetish vegetable ex- 

 tract than those of the same weight which he 

 had grown in common water; and it is an as- 

 certained fact, that the roots of plants will ab- 

 sorb or reject the various earthy substances of 

 a soil, or even when placed in a saline solution, 

 jn a very remarkable manner: thus, when 

 equal parts of gum and sugar were dissolved 

 together in water, and some perfect plants of 

 Polygonum Persicarria placed with their roots 

 jn the solution, it was found that they absorbed 

 36 parts of the sugar, but only 26 of the gum ; 

 and when in precisely the same proportions 

 and inaiiiuT Glauber salt, common salt, and 

 acetate of lime were used, then it was found 

 lhat the roots of the Persicaria separated these 

 alts from the solution with much ease, ab- 

 orting 6 parts of the Glauber salt, 10 parts of 

 he common salt, but not a trace of the acetate 

 if lime. ( Thomson, vol. i v. p. 32 1 .) 



These facts will not be uninteresting to the 

 rrigators or occupiers of the English wuti-r- 

 Jieadows, since they may, in some degree, 

 erve to account for the beneficial action of 

 water on such lands a question not nearly so 

 vell understood as it ought to be, and on 

 ivhich widely differing opinions are commonly 

 jeld by practical farmers. It is a theme inti- 

 mately connected with the subject of this arti- 

 cle, for irrigation is, in truth, a mode of apply- 

 .Ag the weakest of liquid manures, on a very 

 bold scale, to grass-lands. See IRRIGATION. 



The employment of artificially-prepared 

 liquid manure (though little known at present 

 in England) is very extensive on the Conti- 

 nent : the Swiss farmers call it smile : in France 

 it is denominated lizicr ; and by the Germans, 

 mist-u'usser. They prepare it throughout many 

 of the German states, and in the Netherlands, 

 by sweeping the excrements of their stall-fed 

 cattle into under-ground reservoirs, mixing it 

 with four or five times its bulk of water, ac- 

 cording to the richness of the dung: five reser- 

 voirs are generally employed, of such a size 

 that they each take a week to fill; and thus 

 each has four weeks allowed to ferment before 

 the mass, which in this time becomes of an 

 uniform consistence, is removed, by means of 

 a portable pump, in water carts, or large open 

 vessels. A similar plan is adopted in the 

 north of Italy, and from time out of mind has 

 been practised by the Chinese. In that em- 

 pire, however, the cultivators chiefly employ 

 night soil, which is made into cakes for this 

 purpose with lime or clay, in all their large 

 cities, to prepare their liquid manure. 



It is from long experience an admitted fact 

 mong the German tanners, that there are no 

 92 



LIQUID MANURE. 



manures so powerful in their operation as 

 those which are liquids, such as human urine 

 or bullocks' blood ; so that no English farmer 

 need fear deception as to their asserted value. 

 This very fact was submitted some years 

 since to the consideration of Professor Hemb- 

 ! stadt, of Berlin, by the Saxon and Prussian au- 

 thorities, who were anxious to apply the con- 

 tents of the city drains towards fertilizing the 

 , barren lands in the neighbourhood of Dresden 

 I and Berlin. This talented agriculturist under- 

 took, in consequence, a series of valuable ex- 

 periments, which, varied in every possible way, 

 were carried on for a considerable period ; the 

 result of them, so highly advantageous to the 

 prosperity of Germany, Hembstadt then pub- 

 lished. They were repeated with unvaried 

 success by Professor Schiibler, and the results 

 may be stated in the following order: 



If the soil, without any manure, yield a pro- 

 duce of three times the quantity of seed origi- 

 nally sown, then the same quantity of land will 

 produce 



5 times the quantity of seed sown, when 

 dressed with old herbage, grass, leaves, &c. 



7 times, when dressed with cow dung. 



9 times, with pigeons' dung. 

 ,10 times, with horse dung. 

 12 times, with lin/nun urine. 

 12 times, with sheep's dimy. 

 14 times, with human manure or bullocks' blood. 

 Thus it will be seen that, of seven usually 

 employed fertilizers, the liquid manures, urine 

 and blood, were found to be decidedly the most 

 powerful. 



Both with regard to the quantity of liquid 

 manure applied per acre, and the mode of 

 spreading it, much must depend upon the cir- 

 cumstances under which the cultivator is 

 placed, and the richness of the liquid he em- 

 ploys. If the impurities dissolved, or mecha- 

 nically suspended in the water, are equal to 1 

 part in 10, then 20 to 30 tons per acre of the 

 liquid manure I have found amply sufficient, 

 under ordinary circumstances, to produce the 

 most excellent results; if the fluid mass is 

 purer, then more must be applied. For gar- 

 dens, and small plots of ground in general, the 

 liquid may be readily and evenly distributed 

 over the beds by means of a watering-pot or 

 garden-engine; for fields it must be carried in 

 water-carts, and distributed either by being let 

 into a transverse trough, pierced with holes in, 

 the manner of those employed for street water- 

 ings, or the Flemish plan may be adopted (es- 

 pecially when the manure is of too consider- 

 able thickness to flow readily through holes), 

 of taking it into the fields in the water-carts, 

 open at the top (furnished with slight movab'.e 

 covers), and then distributing it out of the cart 

 very evenly by means of a scoop; and I have 

 invariably perceived the advantage of plough- 

 ing the liquid into the soil as soon after it wot 

 spread on the land as possible. The cultivator 

 will find great advantage if he uses the garden 

 engine, watering-pot, or cart, from straining 

 the liquid manure before he pumps it out of 

 the reservoir, either through straw, coarse 

 sand, or a basket; the pieces of straw, and 

 other coarsely-divided matters thus separated 

 by the strainer, he will discover add very 



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