S26 



Soiling. 



Vol. XII. 



of charcoal dust, which absorbs the ammonia 

 as it rises to escape, and the potash as it 

 dissolves, by absorption, and holds them until 

 saturated with rain, when the "fases are again 

 disseminated in the heap, and the charcoal 

 takes in moisture. This manure may then 

 be placed on fields in large or small quanti- 

 ties, as required, and in sucli a manner as to 

 produce the most advantage. An opportu- 

 nity is afforded likewise, of making any de- 

 scription of manure needed. If highly nitro- 

 genized substances are required for crops, 

 allow the hogs to run in the barn-yard, and 

 feed them corn ; it contains valuable nutri- 

 tious elements, suitable not only to the 

 growth of plants, but the animals themselves, 

 being composed of nitrogen, potash, carbon, 

 soda, lime, and other necessary chemicals, 

 all of which, after having formed the bones, 

 flesh, fat, skin, hair and muscles of the ani- 

 mal, are finally returned to the manure heap 

 in lesser quantities. The value of the ma- 

 nure may be farther increased by feeding 

 oats, rye, peas, buckwheat, cut straw, &c. 



One reason that the excrement of the 

 horse is so much richer and more valuable 

 than that of the cow is, that the horse is fed 

 on farinaceous matter, corn, oats, &c., which 

 the cow is not; and so likewise is that of 

 man, because he partakes of a great variety 

 of food, both animal and vegetable. My 

 barnyard has yielded me a large amount of 

 manure per annum, since I commenced soil- 

 ing my stock; whereas, before, I did not ob- 

 tain a single load, except in winter. The 

 plan I adopt is, to cast daily all the refuse 

 of the farm into the yard ; such as weeds, 

 muck, leaves, refuse straw, sods from the 

 hedge rows, pond mud, refuse vegetables, 

 and numerous other substances that might 

 be named; the hogs turn them over and in- 

 corporate them one with another, and the 

 stock tramples down and forms them into a 

 solid mass; charcoal dust is once a week 

 spread over the whole, which retains and 

 preserves all the gases that would otherwise 

 escape; every three months it is drawn out, 

 placed in a square heap, and mi.xed with 

 plaster, ashes, salt, muck, and guano; the 

 whole is then covered with charcoal dust to 

 the depth of six inches, and left until fall, 

 when it is used upon the fields most requir- 

 ing it; spread on broad cast, and ploughed 

 under the earth, and the crops make use of 

 the gases as nature provides, and all care 

 ceases. 



Another most important advantage accrues 

 to ihc soiler, viz: a piece of land that would 

 support five cows, depastured one week, 

 would amply furnish the same with an abun- 

 dant supply of food one month, if cut and 

 carried to them. The piece depastured 



would likewise be almost destroyed by poach- 

 ing in wet weather, trampling, sleeping 

 upon, and injury to the herbage by close 

 eating. Horses do much more damage than 

 cows, as they eat much closer, and frequently 

 pull the grass out by the roots. 



When cattle are stall-fed, or soiled in the 

 the yard, the nitrogen of the manure may be 

 preserved by artificial means. It is an in- 

 gredient absolutely indispensable to the 

 growth of plants. By analysis it has been 

 found in every>part of the growing plant; 

 the roots, stems, leaves, &c., contain it, 

 showing that without it plants cannot be 

 grown. How important then is it, that so 

 valuable a substance should be preserved. I 

 have grown plants in pure charcoal dust, by 

 watering them with rain water; the rain 

 water yielded them ammonia, and conse- 

 quently nitrogen as one of its elements. I 

 found with spring water, I could not grow 

 them after a certain period at all in charcoal 

 dust ; but with rain water most successfully. 

 Although the air must contain a vast quan- 

 tity of nitrogen, I am confident the plants I 

 grew, did not obtain the quantity they re- 

 quired from that source; if they had, the 

 spring water would have answered them as 

 well as rain water ; they must have obtained 

 it through the medium of ammonia contained 

 in the rain water. This is a singular fact, 

 and goes to show that although a generation 

 of more than one thousand millions of the 

 children of Adam, and 20,000 millions of 

 animals cease to exist, aud the nitrogen 

 which they contain, is yielded in part to the 

 air air of heaven every thirty years, still 

 plants cannot elaborate it in their system, 

 except through the medium of their roots. 

 The hydrogen unites with the nitrogen, af- 

 forded, not only by dead animals, but by the 

 excrement and urine of all animals while 

 living, as well as other putrescent matter; 

 thus forming ammonia, which combines with 

 carbonic acid gas, and descends with every 

 shower to the earth's surface, in a soluble 

 form, easily taken up by the roots, and dis- 

 tributed throughout the plant. Davy calcu- 

 lates, that if a pint of rain water contain 

 only a quarter of a grain of ammonia, a field 

 of forty thousand square feet must receive 

 yearly upwards of eighty pounds of ammonia, 

 or sixty-five pounds of nitrogen; for it is as- 

 certained that the annual fall of rain water 

 in England, on this extent of surface, is at 

 least 2,500,000 pounds. This is much more 

 nitrogen than is contained in the form of 

 vegetable albumen and gluten in 2,800 lbs. 

 of hay, or 20,000 lbs. of beet root, which 

 would be the yearly produce of such a field; 

 but it is less than the straw, roots, and grain 

 of corn, which might grow on the same sur- 



