a# THE RURAL SOCRATESk 



gn ay accelerate the putrefaction of others where it U 

 more flow.-;-In the beginning of autumn he litters hia 

 cattle with flraw during two months ; the next two 

 months he litters them with twigs and fpines (or point- 

 ed leaves) from fir and pine trees ; then flraw again, or 

 ruflies and dried leaves 5 then twigs and fpines y and £0 

 on alternately. 



The regulation of his compofl dunghill is as fol- 

 lows—Left the fermentation fhould be totally fuppreC* 

 fed or even checked by drought, he is afliduoufly atten- 

 tive to the prefervation of a certain degree of moifture. 

 The celebrated M. de Reaumur, in his treatife on hatch- 

 ing eggs in ovens or hot houfes, obicrves, that when the 

 heat of the hot- bed decreafes, it fnould be watered to 

 increafe fermentation. The fagacity of our philofopher 

 has explained to him,, that to obtain a manure thorough- 

 ly rotten, he has nothing to do but to preferve a con- 

 ilant fermentation by frequent waterings. — To facilitate 

 this, he has funk near his dunghill feven large fquarc 

 pits, which are planked with wood in the form of boxes* 

 In thefe pits he keeps the prolific water, efiential to £0 

 anany operations. Firll:, putting fome thoroughly fer- 

 mented cow- dung at the bottom of his wooden boxes, 

 he pours in a pretty confiderable quantity of boiling 

 "Water ; and then fills up the pit with frefh water from 

 his wells : this brings on, in three weeks, -a ftate of 

 putrefcence ; which, without boiling water, could not 

 be attainable in two months. He has thus a perpetual 

 fupply of corrupted water, as well for the purpofes of 

 vegetation, as to keep his dunghill in a conftant flate of 

 humidity.*— But as the expence and labor o£ fuch a 



work 



• Were the encourtgert of agriculture to compare what Is here related 

 with part 1 1, fcd^ion ^» of that incomparable work of Dto Francis Hoire%> 

 in'itled, the Principles of Agrkulirne and Vegetation, tbcy would certainly 

 beftruck with the exaO fiir.ilarity that appears in the prad^ical hufbandiy 

 of our iudirious peafijnf, and the Dolor's precepts given as new obfer« 

 vstioct, K^liy^gg <3ircover9d ihfrri by the light ©f oiaiOfe ; Home, by h«i 



