No. 10. 



Importance of Manure. 



307 



breeder in Yorkshire, and yet, from the fold- 

 yard of the one, the liquid was conducted 

 by a drain into the nearest ditch ; and from 

 the cow-houses of the other, into a shallow 

 open pond, where it stood reeking and fer- 

 menting beneath a blazing sun ! What 

 merit, as a farmer, can that man claim, 

 who, though he annually lays five tons of 

 guano, or bones, or rape-dust upon his farm, 

 yet allows what is equal to ten or twenty 

 tons of the same, to run to waste from his 

 farm-yard in the form of liquid manure"? 



It is such waste as this that the high price 

 of portable manure tends to check. It is 

 now happily checking it here and there in 

 various parts of the island; but it will be 

 long before the evil is remedied over the 

 general face of the country. 



But after he has done everything in the 

 way of saving what he had hitherto inad- 

 vertently neglected, the inquiring farmer 

 still finds that his wants are not all sup- 

 plied; that if he would farm high — raise, 

 in other words, the largest possible produce 

 from his land — he must still incur a consi- 

 derable annual expense in the purchase of 

 foreign manures. Can I not, he next asks 

 himself— can I not husband these manures 

 which cost me so much'? Is there no way 

 in which I can more economically apply 

 them, so as, from the same quantity of ma- 

 nure, to obtain a larger return of roots or 

 corn'? This inquiry leads him to three suc- 

 cessive mechanical improvements, as they 

 may be called, which are severally applica- 

 ble to one or other of the crops he cultivates, 

 First, To put his manure into the ground 

 immediately before he sows his crop in 

 spring or summer, rather than in the pre- 

 ceding autumn. This is a result of the 

 same system of saving to which we have 

 already adverted. By examining the wa- 

 ters which escape from the drains during 

 winter — upon his thorough drained land — 

 he finds that they actually carry with them 

 a portion of the manure he had previously 

 laid upon his fields in the autumn, and that 

 thus he had unconsciously suffered a partial 

 loss. To put it in, therefore, only when 

 spring arrives, will ensure him a certain 

 saving. Second, To deposit the manure in 

 the drills when his seed is sown, putting it 

 all thus within reach of the plant, and wast- 

 ing none of it on the unprofitable or unpro- 

 ductive part of the soil. And third, with 

 the drop-drill to bury it only beside the 

 seeds it is intended to nourish, and thus 

 more perfectly to effect what laying along 

 the w'hole drill had only in part accom- 

 plished. These methods husband his ma- 

 nures, and, at the same time, call in the aid 

 of the ingenious mechanic to furnish cheap 



and efficient implements, by which the se- 

 veral operations may be easily performed. 

 They may not be applicable to all his crops, 

 and there are certain circumstances under 

 which the intelligent practical man will 

 wisely refrain from fully adopting any one 

 of them; but they are valuable illustrations 

 of rural economy, nevertheless, and of the 

 line along which improvement will proceed, 

 in endeavouring "to raise the largest amount 

 of produce, in the shortest time, at the small- 

 est cost, and with the least permanent in- 

 jury to the land." 



But the same desire to husband his ma- 

 nures, leads him also to what may be called 

 a chemical improvement in the form in 

 whicli he applies them. "If," says he, "as 

 chemists tell me, the roots of the plant drink 

 in only that which is in a liquid form, the 

 manures which are already in a liquid state, 

 or in such a condition, at least, that the 

 rains will readily dissolve them, should be 

 more immediately useful in the nourishment 

 of my crops. If I apply dry bones to my 

 turnips, they must take a considerable time 

 to become soluble, and may not yield all 

 their substance to the growing bulb before 

 its period of maturity arrives ; and though 

 the residue of the bones left in the soil does 

 benefit the after crop, still the rains of win- 

 ter must wash away some of their constitu- 

 ents, and thus occasion to me a variable 

 loss. Would not the same quantity of bones 

 or rape-dust, or even of guano, go further in 

 the production of corn, or potatoes, or tur- 

 nips, if I could apply all their constituents 

 to my land in a fluid forml" Theory and 

 experiment both answer these questions in 

 the affirmative. Recent experiments, espe- 

 cially upon the action of bones dissolved in 

 sulphuric acid, have thrown new light upon 

 this subject; and though too hasty inferences 

 have by some been drawn from them, and 

 the benefits to be derived from the new me- 

 thod have been exaggerated, and unreason- 

 able expectations have consequently been 

 excited, yet such good may fairly be ex- 

 pected from the use of the liquid form of 

 applying manures, as will encourage, we 

 hope, the continuance and extension of ex- 

 perimental inquiry. — Edinburgh Review. 



Poultry Houses. — If you wish your hens 

 to lay through the winter, have their houses 

 cleaned out thoroughly. Empty the nests of 

 all filth, and have them scraped inside and 

 out, and then whitewashed. Place contigu- 

 ous to your hen-house, under roof, a peck or 

 two of lime, a bushel of gravel, and a load 

 of sand or ashes, so that they can daily have 

 access to these substances. 



