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 produce 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 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 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 w^e are 

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



