MANURES. 143 



All writers upon turf, in speaking of its antiseptic 

 properties, say it is imbued with a phosphoric acid, 

 having some affinity to gallic acid or tannin, and 

 which renders it, in that state, anti-putrescent, and, 

 consequently, deleterious to vegetation. It will dry- 

 rot and pulverize when exposed to the air, and is in 

 that state pernicious, because it has not gone through 

 the fermentation necessary to render it soluble, and 

 fitting food for plants. The fermentative decay and 

 solution of vegetable and animal substances afford 

 to vegetation its proper nutriment. The turf, it will 

 be perceived, when used in compost, and in contact 

 with fermentative manures, attracts to itself and ab- 

 sorbs so much of the putrescent exhalations as is 

 necessary to expel the acid which checks its decay, 

 in common with the manure placed in juxtaposition 

 with it. If this, then, be a tendency of the turf in the 

 compost, why should it not operate similarly, though in 

 a less degree, in the earth to which it is applied, and, 

 so far from affording nutriment to surrounding ve- 

 getation, attract it to itself, and absorb the putrescent 

 or fermentative substances already in the soil * In 

 the first instance, it has always been said, and it is 

 no doubt true, that the turf, while saturated with the 

 acid, is remotely deleterious to vegetable growth 

 and to the soil ; and after having, within the soil, 

 taken to itself what will promote its decay, it prob- 

 ably gives it back, and does become in some degree 

 beneficial as a manure. It may well be that sulphu- 

 ric acid will, by its action on the turf, accelerate the 

 souring to which I have adverted, and thus promote 

 the decay of the turf. Turf was, for a long while, 

 the source of disappointment as a manure, until the 

 principles applied to it by Lord Meadowbanks were 

 scientifically explained and brought into practice. 



In the spring and in the fall, immediately after car- 

 rying out the supply of manure from my cattle- 

 yards and hogsties, I bottom them anew with turf 

 to the depth of at least a foot, covering it with six 



