PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 



sr 



be left a few weeks in a close stable or privy, so that ils 

 surface is in free conininnication with the ammoniacal 

 vapors that rise from b('h)\v, crystals of muiiate of airi- 

 monia, or common sal-ammoniac, will soon be visible, 

 as an incrustation about its ediies. The ammonia that 

 escapes in this way is not only entirely lost as far as 

 vegetation is concerned ; it works also a slow but not less 

 certain destruction of the mortar and plaster of the 

 building; for, when in contact with the lime^of the 

 mortar, ammonia is convxMted into nitric acid, which 

 gradually dissolves the lime. There are few school-boys 

 who have not picked out crystals of nitrate of |)otass, 

 or saltpetre, from an old brick wall; and in this in- 

 stance the atmosphere has yielded the ammonia. 



The offensive carbonate of ammonia in close stables 

 is very injurious to the eyes and lungs of liorses, as the 

 army and veterinary surgeons are well able to testify. 

 They adopt measures to carry it off by ventilation and 

 cle'anliness. If the floors or stables of cow-sheds were 

 strewed with common gypsum, they would lose all their 

 offensive and injurious smell, and none of the ammonia 

 which forms could be lost, but would be retained in a 

 condition serviceable as manure. This composition — 

 swept from the stable door — nearly constitutes what is 

 sold under the denomination of 2irate. Manufacturers 

 of this material, state, that three or four hundred weight 

 of urate form sufficient manure for an acre. A far more 

 proiriising adventure for a practical farmer will be to go 

 to some expense in saving his own liquid manure, and, 

 after mixing it with burnt cypsum, to lay it abundantly 

 upon his grain-lands : for, in this way, he may use as 

 much gypsum as will (ibsorb the whole of the urine. 

 Now, in the manufacture of urate, the proportion of 

 10 pounds is employed to every 7 gallons — allowing the 

 mixture (occasionally stirred) to ^tand some time, imur- 

 ing off the liquid, and with it nearly all its saline con- 

 tents, except the annnonia. Urate, therefore, can never 

 present all the virtues of the urine— 100 poimds of urate 

 containing no greater weight of saline and organic mat- 

 ter than 10 gallons of urine. 



