ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE MANURES. 75 



waste in the air, instead of being absorbed by, and enrich- 

 ing the soil ; and the hquids to course down hill to the 

 highway or some neighboring brook. But what shall we 

 say of the mass of our farmers ? We have travelled hun- 

 dreds of miles to the west, and seen great quantities of 

 manure, in the yards and about the barns, often the ac- 

 cumulation of years, seemingly considered by the owners 

 rather as an encumbrance, or a nuisance, than as a source 

 of fertility and wealth. 



In the new system of husbandry, the farmer's profits 

 are in a measure graduated by the quantity of manure he 

 is enabled to jDroduce from his farm. In the fourth vol- 

 ume of the Cultivator, estimates are given, from high au- 

 thorities, of the amount produced upon farms in Great 

 Britain. Doctor Coventry, Agricultural Professor in the 

 Edinburgh University, gives four tons of manure to each 

 acre of straw manufactured by farm-stock. A Berwick- 

 shire 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, if the 

 products are consumed by the stock on the farm, are esti- 

 mated to be sufficient to give a full supply of manure once 

 in every course of the four-year system of husbandry. 

 Arthur Young, with six horses, four cows, nine hogs, and 

 suitable litter, made IIS 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 upon 

 dry fodder alone ; and an acre of turnips, with an adequate 

 quantity of straw, has produced sixteen cart-loads of dung. 

 It will be readily perceived, that by this mode of man- 

 agement, ample means may be provided for keeping up 

 the fertility of the soil, when put under the four-shift 

 system 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 quantity which is judiciously 

 applied, will not amount to one load an acre, and we are 

 doubtful if it will amount to half a load. Can it be won- 



