APPLICATION TO THE SOIL. 55 



general rule, that those manures which are most active 

 are soonest spent and gone. Lands, therefore, that 

 have been manured with fisli not only receive no im- 

 provement by the application, but in many cases they 

 havfe been run out and impoverished to such a degree 

 as to be wholly unfit for cultivation. It has been cus- 

 tomary, in some places near the sea-shore, to put two 

 alewives to a hill of corn, and apply no other manure. 

 This powerful stimulant lays the whole soil under con- 

 tribution, and exhausts every particle of the vegetable 

 matter contained in it. It lies heavy and dead. The 

 flesh of land animals would not operate so quick, and 

 would remain longer to nourish the plants within its 

 reach. 



The excrement of animals operates differently ac- 

 cording to the different circumstances under which it is 

 placed. If kept in a cellar, and trodden down close by 

 cattle, so that the air has not access to it, you will find 

 it as fresh and as green at the end of six months as 

 when it was first deposited there. The air is essential 

 to its decomposition ; and, on the same principle, the 

 bottom of a fence-post keeps sound much longer than 

 that part which is more exposed to the air. 



This kind of manure needs to be cautiously managed, 

 else much of it is wasted. Some good farmers have 

 doubted whether we ever lose any of the beneficial 

 salts of this manure from exposure to the sun and air ; 

 and they accordingly spread it on the surface of their 

 fields, and care not to bury it deeper than a harrow will 

 cover it. They contend that nothing evaporates but 

 its watery particles, and that all which is valuable to 

 vegetation remains in the soil. Some insist that this 

 kind of manure should not be used till it is a year old, 

 and that it should lie in heaps long enough to become 

 rotten before it is spread on the soil. We need more 

 experiments on this subject than we have yet seen 

 published. As my uncle Toby used to say, '' Much 

 may be said on both sides of the question." 



