FARMERS' REGISTER— APPLICATION OF MANURES. 



737 



the manure parts with during fermentation, for it 

 evidently loses much in Aveight as well as in hulk, 

 and whether this lost matter would, if buried in 

 the soil, have afforded food to the crop. For if it 

 possessed no fertilizii>g property, the sooner it is got 

 rid of the better, and we save the expense of trans- 

 porting it to the field. But if it really consists of 

 prepared or digested food, fitted for the organs and 

 wants of plants, it is truly improvident to have it 

 wasted and lost for all useful purposes. The latter 

 is really the case.* The matter which escapes in 

 fermentation is veget.able matter in a gaseous form, 

 fitted by natural process, like chyle in the animal 

 stomach, to enter into and become a constituent in 

 a new generation of plants. It is principally car- 

 bonic acid gass, the aliment of vegetables and the 

 true staff of vegetable life. It has been vegetable 

 matter, and will become vegetable matter again 

 when brought info contact with the mouths or 

 roots of plants. Without re.sorting to chemical 

 proofs or authorities to prove this, I will suggest a 

 mode by which the matter can be satisfactorily 

 settled. Let any farmer, in the sjiring, before 

 yard manure ferments, put twenty-five loads in 

 a pile to rot, and take another twenty-five loads to 

 the field where he intends to ])lanthis corn, spread 

 it upon one acre, plough it well under, harrow the 

 ground, and plant his seed. Let him plant another 

 acre of corn along side this, ivit/ioui manure. As 

 soon as the corn is harvested, carry on and spread 

 the twenty-five loads of prejjared or rotted ma- 

 nure left in the yard, or what remains of it, upon 

 the acre not manured for corn, and sow both pieces 

 to wheat. Unless my olisei'vation and practice 

 have deceived me, he will find the result of^ the ex- 

 periment to be this: the acre dressed with long 

 manure will yield the most wheat, because the 

 manure has been less exhausted in the process of 

 summer rotting, and for the reason, that in culti- 

 vating the corn, it has become better incorporated 

 with the soil — and it will, besides, have yielded some 

 twenty or thirty more bushels of corn, in consequence 

 of the gases upon which the crop here fed and thrived, 

 but which in the yard were dissipated by the winds 

 and lost. 



Plants, like animals, require different modifica- 

 tions of food. In general, the plants which afford 

 large stocks or roots, as corn, potatoes, turnips and 

 clover, thrive best on the gases which are given 

 off from dung in the process of fermentation — 

 while those exclusively cultivated for their seeds, 

 as wheat, barley, &c. are often prejudiced by these 

 volatile parts, which cause a rank growth of straw 

 without improving the seed. Hence the first men- 

 tioned crops may be fed on long manure without 

 lessening its value for the second class, provided 

 they immediately follow, and hence unfermented 

 manures are most economically applied to hoed 

 crops. 



Different rules should govern in the application 

 of fermented and unfermented manures. The lat- 

 ter should be buried at the bottom of the furrow 



*As soon as dung begins to decompose, or rot, it 

 throws off its volatile parts, which are tiie most vahia- 

 ble and most efficient. Dung which has fermented so as 

 to become a mere soft cohesive mass, has generally lost 

 from one-third to one-half of its most useful constituent 

 elements. It evidently should be applied as soon as fer 

 mentation begins, that it may exert its full action upon 

 the plant, and lose none of its nutritive powers. — Davu. 



Vol. J.— 93 



with the plough — the former only sujterficially with 

 the harrow. The reasons are these — unfermen- 

 tated dung operates mechanically while undergo- 

 ing fermentation, in rendering the recumbent soil 

 porous and pervious to heat and air, the great 

 agents of decomposition and nutrition, and the ga- 

 seous or volatile parts being specifically lighter 

 than atmospheric air, ascend,* and supply the wants 

 of the young roots. The next ploughing turns the 

 residue of the dung to the surface, when it bene- 

 fits on a different principle ; for fermented ma- 

 nures consist of ponderable substances, which have 

 a tendency only to descend. 



JManures possess a high value in all good farm- 

 ing districts, where the natural fertility of the soil 

 has been impaired by culture. In most of our 

 large towns it is bought up at one or two dollars a 

 cord, and transported ten or twenty miles by land 

 carriage, and much farther by water. So essen- 

 tial is it considered in Europe to profitable hus- 

 bandry, that every material which imparts fertili- 

 ty is sedulously economised, and applied to the 

 soil. Among other things, ship loads of bones are 

 annually brought from the continent into Great 

 Britian, and ground for manure. Bone dust is in 

 such high demand in Scotch husbandry, that its 

 price has advanced to 3s. Qd. sterling per bushel. 



We possess no certain data to ascertain the sav- 

 ing which may be i?itroduced into this branch of 

 farm economy ; yet if we put down the number of 

 farms .in the state at one-tenth of our population, 

 or 200,000, and estimate that an average increase 

 (>f five loads upon each farm might annuall)' be 

 made, it would give us a total of one million loads, 

 which, at the very moderate price of 25 cents, 

 would amount to $:2.50,000 per annum. 



Farm implements. — We must all have noticed 

 the great improvements which a few years have 

 made in the mechanic and manufacturing arts. 

 Scarcely a process is managed as it was twenty 

 years ago. Scarcely an old machine but has un- 

 dergone improvements, or given j)lace to a better 

 model. Manufacturing operations have been sim- 

 plified and abridged, and human labor has been 

 reduced to a comparative cypher, by the substitu- 

 tion of machinery and the power of steam. The 

 effect has been a great reduction in the price of 

 manufactured commodities, and an increase in their 

 consumption. We are assured that during the 

 twelve years which elapsed between 1818 and 1830, 

 Sheffield wares — hardware and cutlery — experi- 

 enced an average reduction in price of sixty per 

 cent., varying upon different articles from 40 to 

 85 per cent.f Cotton goods, books and various 

 other fabrics, have undergone a reduction no less 

 remarkable within our time. These beneficial 

 changes have resulted in a great measure from the 

 aid which science has either itself imparted, or 

 which it has elicited from mechanic skill — for a 



*A friend made this experiment: He trenched a 

 quarter of his garden, and deposited a layer of dry 

 straw, three inches thick, one foot below the surface, as 

 the only manure, and planted it Avith water-melons. 

 The crop, he said, was the finest he ever grew. On ex- 

 amining the straw in autumn, he found it was complete- 

 ly rotted, and reduced to the condition of short muck. 

 He was satisfied that his melons had been highly bene- 

 fitted by the straw while undergoing fermentation, and 

 that had the straw rotted in the yard, the volatile por- 

 tion of the manure would have been wholly lost. 



t Babbage on the Economy of. Macliinery. 



