MANURING. 19 



and the liquid to course down hill to the highway or 

 the brook. But what shall we say of the mass of 

 our farmers T We have travelled hundreds of miles 

 to the west, and seen great quantities of manure in 

 the yards and about the barns (often the accumula- 

 tion of years), seemingly considered by the owners 

 rather as an encumbrance or a nuisance than as a 

 source of fertility and of wealth. In the new sys- 

 tem of husbandry, the farmer's profits are, in a meas- 

 ure, graduated by the quantity of manure he is en- 

 abled to produce from his farm. In the first num- 

 ber of the fourth volume of the Cultivator, we gave 

 estimates, from high authorities, of the amount pro- 

 duced upon farms in Great Britain. Dr. Coventry, 

 Agricultural Professor in the Edinburgh University, 

 gives to each acre of straw four tons of manure man- 

 ufactured by farm-stock. A Berwickshire farmer, 

 quoted by Sir John Sinclair, obtained four cart loads, 

 of 30 to 35 cubic feet each, from every ox wintered 

 upon straw and turnips. Meadow-land is stated to 

 produce from four to six tons of manure to the acre ; 

 and the available sources of fertility upon a farm are 

 estimated to be sufficient to give a full supply of ma- 

 nure once in every course of the four-year system 

 of husbandry. Arthur Young, with six horses, four 

 cows, nine hogs, and suitable litter, made 118 loads of 

 dung, 36 bushels each, in a winter. Cattle fed with 

 turnips are computed to make double the manure 

 that those do which are fed on dry fodder alone ; 

 and an acre of turnips, with an adequate quantity of 

 straw, has produced 16 cart loads of dung. It will 

 be readily perceived, that by this mode of arrange- 

 ment, ample means are provided for keeping up the 

 fertility of the soil when put under a four-shift sys- 

 tem of husbandry. 



What, now, is the common quantity of manure 

 under the old system! Taking our state or our 

 country at large, we are confident the average quan- 

 tity which is judiciously applied will not amount to 



