MANURES. 



MANURES. 



and the simile of desolation, employed by Isaiah 

 (chap. i. 30), is, " a garden that hath no water." 

 In Egypt they irrigated their lands, and the 

 water thus supplied was by an hydraulic ma- 

 chine, worked by men, in the same manner as 

 the modern tread-wheel. To this practice Mo- ; 

 ses alludes, when he reminds the Israelites of i 

 their sowing their seed in Egypt, and watering 

 it with their feet; a practice still pursued in 

 Arabia. (Deut. xi. 10; Niebuhr's I'oyage en Ara- 

 fci>, i. p. 121.) 



Of their knowledge of manures we know 

 little. Wood was so scarce that they consumed 

 the dung of their animals for fuel. (Parkhurst, 

 p. 764.) Perhaps it was this deficiency of car- 

 bonaceous matters for their lands, that makes 

 an attention to fallowing so strictly enjoined. 

 (Lci-if. xix. 23 ; xxv. 3. Hosea x. 12.) 



Agriculture was too important and beneficial 

 an art not to demand, and the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans were nations too poli.shed and discerning 

 not to afford to it,* very plentiful series of pre- 

 siding deities. They attributed to Ceres, as the 

 Egyptians did to Isis, the invention of the art 

 of tilling the soil. Superstition is a prolific 

 weakness ; and consequently, by degrees, every 

 operation of agriculture, and every period of 

 the growth of crops, obtained its presiding 

 tutelary deity. The goddess Terra was the 

 guardian of the soil; Stercuiius presided over 

 manures, &c. 



Xenophon recommends green crops to be 

 ploughed in, and leguminous plants to be raised 

 for the purpose; "for such," he says, "enrich 

 the soil as much as dung." He also recom- 

 mends earth that has been long under water 

 to be put upon land to enrich it. Theophras- 

 tus, who flourished in the 4th century u. <., is 

 sti.i more particular upon the subject of ma- 

 nures. He states his conviction that a proper 

 mixture of soils, as clay v/ith sand, and the 

 contrary, would produce crops as luxuriant as 

 could be effected by the agency of manures. 

 He describes the properties that render dungs 

 beneficial to vegetation, and dwells upon com- 

 posts. (Hist. Plan 1 , ii. c. 8.) He also recom- 

 mends the stubble at reaping-time to be left 

 long, if the straw is abundant; "and this, if 

 burned, will enrich the soil very much, or it 

 m;iy he cut and mixed with dung." 



From the outline which we can draw from 

 ancient authorities of the agriculture of the 

 Romans, we shall be surprised to find how 

 little they differed from the methods we now 

 employ. We are superior to them in our im- 

 plements, and consequently in the facility of 

 performing the operations of tillage; but of the 

 fundamental practices of the art they were as 

 fully aware as ourselves. No modern writer 

 could lay down more correct and comprehen- 

 sive axioms than Cato did, in the following 

 words ; and whoever strictly obeys them will 

 never be ranked among the ignorant of the art. 

 "What is good tillage!" says this oldest of the 

 Roman teachers of agriculture. "To plough. 

 What is the second] To plough. The third 

 is to manure.'* (Cato, 61.) In his 4th chapter 

 he thus expresses his conviction of the utility 

 of manure: "Study to have a large dunghill, 

 keep your compost carefully; when you carry 

 it out, scatter it and pulverize it ; carry it out in 



the autumn. Lay dung lound the roots of you? 

 olives in autumn." And in his 29th chapter : 

 " Divide your manure ; carry half of it to the 

 field when you sow your provender, and if there 

 are olive trees, put some dung to their roots." 

 In his 37th chapter he advises the use of pi- 

 geons' dung for gardens, meadows, and corn 

 lands, as well as amerca, or dregs of oil : and re- 

 commends the farmer to preserve carefully the 

 dung of all descriptions of animals. This was 

 advice given 150 years before the Christian 

 era; and now, after the lapse of 2000 years, the 

 direction must be still the same. We learn 

 from Columella (i. 6) and Pliny (xvii. 9; xxiv. 

 19) that they collected their manure and stored 

 it in covered pits, so as to check the escape of 

 the drainage ; and sowed pulverized pigeons' 

 dung, and the like, over their crops, and mixed 

 it with the surface-soil by means of the sarcle 

 or hoe. (Co/urn, i. 16; Calo, 36.) They were 

 aware of the benefit of mixing together earths 

 of opposite qualities, and sowing lupines, and 

 ploughing them in while green. (Vurro, i. 23.) 



Virgil is very particular in describing fertil- 

 izers. With common manure he mentions 

 ashes (Georg. lib. i. 80), pumice-stone, and 

 shells. (Lib. ii. v. 346, 50, and in v. 250, 8.) 

 He advises the seeds of corn to be mixed with 

 saltpetre and the dregs of olive oil, to make the 

 grain swell. (Lib. i. 195.) Irrigation was 

 employed in his days. (Lib. i. 106, 9.) The 

 Italian farmers also, fed down over-luxuriant 

 crops (lib. i. 3), and burned the stubble. (Lib. 

 i. v. 84, 8.) 



Varro (lib. i. c. 38) mentions many kinds of 

 animal manure, and is particularly minute in 

 hi> i numeration of the dung of birds, and in- 

 cludes even that of blackbirds and thrushes 

 kept in aviaries. 



Columella (lib. 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 con- 

 siderable injury; and he enumerates (lib. ii. 

 c. 15), as well-known fertilizers, night-soil, the 

 excrements of birds and sheep, urine (espe- 

 cially for apple-trees and vines), dregs of oil, 

 the excrements of cattle, the ass, the goat, of 

 pigs; ashes, chopped stalks of the lupine (or 

 hop), leaves of trees, brambles, &c., and mud 

 from sewers or ditches. Pliny also mentions 

 that lime was employed as a fertilizer in Gaul, 

 and marl in the same country and Britain; but 

 we can only surmise th' nee, that they were also 

 probably employed by the Romans. (Pliny, 

 xvii. 5.) 



Liquid manure is not a mode of fertilizing 



the land altogether of modern origin. For a 



fermented mixture of water and night-soil has 



from a very early period been employed by the 



Chinese farmers. Those of Italy certain lyprac- 



! tised irrigation in the days of Virgil (Georgic. 



lib. i. v. 106, 9) ; and Cato adds, they employed 



' a mixture of grape-stones and water to fertilize 



! their olive trees. (Lib. xxxvii.) Columella 



| praises very highly the use of stale, putrid 



j urine for vines and apple-trees (lib. ii. c. xv.) , 



! commending also the lees of oil for the samej 



I purpose. More modern agricultural authors 



have united in praising various liquid prepara- 



! tions ; thus Evelyn (whose ingredients mosr of 



?S3 



