78 ON THE ILL EFFECTS OF MANURES. 



scrapings of large cities have been mingled with soil, in such 

 proportion as not to destroy the life of the plants, but to pro- 

 mote their vegetation, they have been considered as commu- 

 nicating, in many cases, a disgusting or offensive quality to 

 some of the vegetables they nourish. They have been 

 charged with imparting a biting and acrimonious taste to 

 radishes and turnips. Potatoes have been observed to borrow 

 the foul taint of the ground." This may readily account for 

 the disease found in the potato. That the potato, in several 

 sections of the United States, is fast degenerating, every one 

 will admit ; and they will continue to do so just so long as 

 the farmer uses animal manure, and suffers rank and poisonous 

 weeds to vegetate on his lands. 



Millers observe a strong, disagreeable odor in the meal of 

 wheat that grew upon land highly charged with rotten recre- 

 ments of cities ; the like deterioration of quality has been 

 remarked in tobacco raised in cow-pens. And stable dung 

 has been accused of imparting a disagreeable flavor to aspara- 

 gus. It seems that some portion of the foul matter of 

 manure is absorbed by the radicles of vegetables, and, after 

 passing unassimilated through the sap-vessels, is commu- 

 nicated by the process of nutrition to living substances. 

 This is not to be wondered at when we know that the prin- 

 cipal constituents of animal and vegetable life are nearly the 

 same ; or the different compounds are all produced by the 

 same elementary principles. Vegetables consist of carbon, 

 hydrogen, and oxygen, and the same substances, with the 

 addition of nitrogen, are the principal constituents of the 

 most important compounds found in the animal creation. 

 "It maybe illustrated in the animal kingdom. Ducks are 

 rendered so ill tasted, from stuffing down garbage, as some- 

 times to be offensive when brought as food to the table ; 

 the quality of pork is known to be modified by the food of 

 the swine ; the bitterness of partridges has been ascribed to 

 the buds on which they live ; and the peculiar flavor of 

 piscivorous fowl is rationally traced to the fish they devour. 

 Thus a portion of nutrimental matter passes into the living 



