THE GENESEE FARMER. 



13 



GULLE. 



GuLLE is a peculiar liquid manure, in use in some 

 parts of rioilaud, in several districts of Switzerland, 

 and in the south-west of Germany. It is a dilution 

 of tlic solid and fluid excrements of cattle in water, 

 sometimes chemically affected by a foreign admix- 

 tin-e, and always subjected, for a considerable time, to 

 tlie putrefactive fermentation. 



Gillie has been longest in use in Switzerland, par- 

 ticularly around the lake of Zurich; and is there pre- 

 pared in trenches and tanks immediately connected 

 with the cattle-houses. The floor on which the cattle 

 stand is covered with planks, bricks, or tiles, and has 

 a s'ight inclination toward their heels. A horizontal 

 trench, for receiving their excrements, extentls from 

 end to end of the floor; and is formed of boards or 

 walling, 18 inches wide and 24 inches deep; and is 

 connected at its lower end with a covered tank, of 6 

 or 8 feet in depth. The trench is half-filled Mith wa- 

 ter; the urine runs naturally into it; part of the solid 

 excrements falls naturally into it, and the rest is raked 

 and washed into it several times a-day; the straw-lit- 

 ter, which has become foul with excrement, is col- 

 lected twice a week, and well rinsed in the trench 

 with the dung-rake, and then left sufficiently long 

 at the side of it to drip out the saturating liquid; 

 and when the trench becomes quite or nearly full, its 

 contents are first thoroughly stirred up, and then let 

 out by the sluice at the end of it into the tank. The 

 trench is again and again, or many times over, filled 

 and emptied in the same way, till the tank becomes 

 full; and in Ittrge establishments, the contents of the 

 full tank, now in a state of considerable fermentation, 

 are run off or pumped into a larger reservoir, and 

 there kept, from four to six weeks, till they have be- 

 come thoroughly fermented. The washed litter, after 

 ha\ing been allowed comi^letely to drip at the edge 

 of the trench, is carried out of the house, and built 

 up in regular quadrangular heaps; and it soon decom- 

 poses into a dark-brown fatty manure; but, in conse- 

 quence of ha\-ing l^eeu cleansed from nearly all the 

 saline and nitrogenous principles of the dung and 

 urine, this manure possesses comparatively little fer- 

 tilizing power. 



In the south-west of Germany, the tanks for the 

 guile are constructed in the fields, and supplied with 

 water from adjacent springs; and both the urine and 

 the dung are carried to them from the cattle-houses. 

 The advantages of this method over the Swiss one, 

 are the lessening of labor in carting the giille to the 

 fields, and, in some instances, the lessening of labor 

 in conveying water to the farmery ; and the disadvan- 

 tages of it, are the increase of labor in collecti"ng 

 the excrements, and the dissipation of some portion 

 of the ammoniacal principle before the excrements 

 can be conveyed to the tank. A practice through- 

 out the south-west of Germany, too, is to dissolve 

 some copperas in the contents of the tank, and though 

 this must damage feiTuginous soils by adding to their 

 proportion of iron, it delivers up its sulphuric acid in- 

 to combination with the ammonia of the urine, and 

 in consequence very generally gives a perceptible in- 

 crease to the fertilizing power of the manure. 



Gillie is generally applied as a top-dressing, and is 

 found to be peculiarly suitable for grass lauds; but, on 



account of the labor of caniage, it can seldom be 

 economically applied to fields or meadows at any con 

 siderable distance from the tank. A grand requisite 

 for it is an adequate supply of wafer; and this requi- 

 site becomes a source of material enrichment, when 

 the water holds a considerable quantity of saline mat 

 ters in solution, — or, in popular phra.se, is " very soft." 

 Giille is conveyed from the tank to the field in liquid 

 niamu-e carts; but it falls most equably and benefici- 

 ally upon the soil, when made to flow from an aper- 

 ture \ti the center of the lower side of the barrel, and 

 to splash upon a dispersing-board su.spended below 

 the aperture. In pumping it out of the tank into 

 the barrel, care ought to be used to leave behind all 

 the undecoraposcd vegetable fibre lying as sediment 

 at the bottom of the tank; for, when this is mixed 

 witli giille used as top-dressing, it lies on the leaves 

 of the young plants, and produces an injurious in- 

 crustation. And it ought always to be applied, either 

 in a state of comparatively great dilution, or when 

 the soil is much moistened with rain; for if used upon 

 dry-grass-land in the concentrated form in which it is 

 prepared, it will act in a somewhat caustic manner, 

 and probably do more harm than good. 



Dr. Sprengel, to whose treaties on Manures we are 

 indebted for the facts we have now stated, speaks 

 very highly of giille, and strongly recommends it to 

 the attention of farmers. " Although," says he, " the 

 arrangements of the cattle-stalls, as well as the nu- 

 merous tanks, required in the preparation of the giille, 

 in order to preserve it for the proper period, occasion 

 much expense, and likewise its distribution over the 

 field much labor, these outlays are richly repaid in 

 the advantages derived from this manure, as will be 

 more clearly shown under the following heads: — I. 

 The water, which is constantly kept in the trench, ab- 

 sorbs much of the carbonic acid given out by the cow 

 in the act of breathing, and consequently the ammo- 

 nia arising from the urine is not only neutralized and 

 thus rendered less volatile, but the carbonic acid is 

 also in itself a strong manuring substance. 2. The 

 water in the trench serves to keep the cow-house cool 

 during the heat of summer, and the vapor occasions 

 a dampness in the atmosphere, which is much better 

 for the health of the cow than a hot and dry air. 3. 

 Little, or perhaps none, of the ammonia, developed 

 by the urine is lost; its escape being prevented, aa 

 my own experiments on the putrefaction of urine and 

 water have proved, by the large quantity of watei 

 present. The absolute gain of manuring element 

 from this circumstance, is, indeed, very considerable, 

 and fully confirms the statement of the Swiss, that, 

 since the time of the introduction of giille, agricul- 

 ture has been considerably improved. 4. By meana 

 of the giille, a sickly plant derives almost immediate 

 relief, in consequence of all the nutriment being al- 

 ready dissolved by the water, and in a fit state to en- 

 ter at once into the plant. 5. It is a point of par- 

 ticular importance that, in adopting the use of giille, 

 a quicker return on outlay of capital is obtained than 

 in the case of common yard-manure. 6. From the 

 guile little or none of the manuring matter is carried 

 off by the rain, while from yard-manure it frequently 

 happens that much is so lost; the practice of spread- 

 ing it on the field in hea\7 dressings causing its ac- ■ 

 tion to continue during three or four years, or even.* 



