MANURES. 



MANURES. 



Belloni's poudrette 

 Oyster shells - 



Marl 



Dry muscular flesh - 

 Cod, salted - 



Do., pressed and salted 

 Blood, soluble - 



Do., liquid - 



Do. - 



Do., coagulated and pressed 



Do., dry, insoluble 

 Feathers - 

 Cows' hair - 

 Woollen rags - 

 Horn raspings - 



Cockchafers - - - - 

 Bones, boiled - 



Do., moist - 



Do., fnt - 

 Glue refuse - 

 Glut- ilross - 

 Graves - 



Animal blacking of the maker 

 Ariimali/.ed black - 

 Noir de champs - 



Moist. 



10 



125 



78 



3 



5 



2 



3 



13 



14 



8 



2 



2 



2 



2 



2 



12 



5 



7 



6 



75 

 10 

 3 



37 

 36 

 32 



"a 



487 



13 

 17 

 10 

 12 



213 

 M 

 II 



m 



<j> 



65 



It is a very common error to suppose that 

 manures of a vegetable or animal nature im- 

 part any sensible warmth to a soil ; the analogy 

 sometimes attempted to be drawn between the 

 action of a fermenting dung-heap and some 15 

 or 20 loads of fennented dung, or half a ton 

 of chopped woollen rags, spread thinly over an 

 acre of ground, is too absurd to be admitted. 

 Yet,although the dung does not sensibly increase 

 the warmth of the land, the temperature of 

 the earth, and the free access of the gases of 

 the atmosphere have a very material influence 

 upon the duration of the manure in the soil. 

 Thus, in the heavy clay and deep alluvial soils 

 it remains much longer than in the sandy, 

 chalky, or gravelly. In the first its good effects 

 may be traced for three or four years ; in the 

 last it is usually consumed in one, two, or at the 

 utmost three years. To the last description of 

 land, therefore, the judicious cultivator usually 

 applies his compost in a half-putrefied state, in 

 order that it may remain longer in the soil : 

 this is now the practice of some of the most 

 enlightened agriculturists. 



Too little attention is paid, in general, to the 

 mii-tinr. of manures by the farmer. This re- 

 mark not only applies to those of the farm- 

 yard, little care being usually taken to spread 

 evenly those of the horse, the cow, and the pig, 

 although it is notorious to the best cultivators, 

 what was stated by the late Mr. Blakie, in his 

 Essay on the Management of Farm-yard Manure, 

 that this chief of fertilizers is very considerably 

 improved by an even mixture, but the remark 

 applies to almost all other manures. Thus, old 

 heaps of weeds, pond-mud, scourings of ditches, 

 and all the earths in which there is any organic 

 matter, are best applied to the soil after being 

 mingled with lime or common salt. Peat, saw- 

 dust, wood-chips, and tanners' bark, nearly in- 

 ert substances in themselves, become excellent 

 manure when mixed with stable-dung. Sprats, 

 and all other fish, are successfully and econo- 

 mically added to three or four times their bulk 

 of mould; and even bone-dust is successfully 

 applied with a third of its weight of the dung 

 of the sheep, and may be then drilled as ad- 

 vantageously with the turnip-seed as the bones 

 in their simple state. Then, again, mixing 

 together some kinds of manures produces, by 

 .heir c'icmical action, a third or fourth, which 



is more valuable than either. Thus, when salt 

 and lime are united together, in the proportion 

 of one part of the former to two parts of the 

 latter, a chemical action takes place; the mass 

 swells, and the salt is gradually decomposed; 

 and in the course of three months, if the heap 

 is suffered to remain undisturbed, both the salt 

 and the lime nearly disappear, and two new 

 substances are formed by the combinations 

 into which their constituents have entered, viz. 

 soda and chloride of lime; both excellent ma- 

 nures. In other cases, the mere mixture of 

 two well-known fertilizers, without any che- 

 mical action between the two, produces much 

 greater effects than that of both when used se- 

 parately. Thus, a compound of salt and soot 

 possesses the most extraordinary fertilizing 

 effects. The late Mr. G. Sinclair, in his Prize 

 Essay on Salt, describes it " as remarkable," 

 when applied to carrots ; a fact which I have 

 often witnessed myself. (My Essay on Salt for 

 Agriculture, p. 145.) The Rev. Edmund Cart- 

 wright was the first to notice the same result 

 with potatoes (Com. to Board of Jlgr. vol. iv. p. 

 376) ; and the same benefit is evident when the 

 mixture is used as a top-dressing for wheat; 

 in which observation my experience is con- 

 firmed by that of others. (My Essay on Salt, 

 p. 41.) There are a few instances, however, 

 in which substances used as manures are best 

 employed in their simple state. Thus, sea- 

 weed, which many of the farmers on the sea- 

 coast throw on their dung-heaps, is much better 

 employed by itself, turned into the earth in the 

 freshest and greenest condition: and to all 

 green manures, and to those which contain 

 salts of ammonia, such as urine, or the liquor 

 from gas-works, the same remarks are appli- 

 cable. See MIXTURE OF SOILS. 



The proportion in which fertilizers are ap- 

 plied is generally unnecessarily large, even of 

 organic manures ; and although this bad prac- 

 tice has been regularly diminishing as agricul- 

 ture has become better understood, yet much 

 remains to be done, in preventing that wasteful 

 expenditure of dung which is continually tak- 

 ing place. 



It is more than probable, that the use of the 

 improved manure-drills, by the even distribu- 

 tion of the fertilizer, and bringing it more 

 closely into contact with the crop, will effect 

 much towards this very desirable saving ; for 

 it must be evident to the most careless, that in 

 the manner in which compost is commonly 

 spread over a field, suffered to be dissipate i 

 by long exposure in heaps to the sun and wind, 

 and afterwards spread over spaces in which 

 there are not any plants to absorb, during its 

 fermentation, the disengaging gases, a very 

 considerable portion of it is lost to the farmer's 

 crops. See MANURES APPLICABLE BY THE 

 DRILL. 



It is almost needless to remark upon the im- 

 portance of such investigations as these both 

 to the cultivator and to the land-owner, or of tnt 

 caution necessary in drawing conclusions from 

 experiments in which vegetation is concerned. 

 " Life," said Davy, "gives a peculiar character 

 to all its productions : the power of attraction 

 and repulsion, combination and decomposition 

 are subservient to it ; a few elements, bv thr 

 3x2 773 



