30 CLIMATE AND RESOUECES OF 



those which might have furnished cattle-food, by all means let 

 them be grown. 



In the case of farmyard manure, composed chiefly as it is of 

 cattle-dung and straw, the materials for making it have first 

 to be carried from the field to the homestead, and then back 

 to the field, when wanted as a manure ; and after all it is only 

 the balance of the food or crop : it has been reduced both in 

 quantity and quality, and still its bulk and weight are the 

 chief obstacles to its use, as it will not repay the cost of its 

 carriage to any distance. Farmyard manure, too, in England, 

 generally contains about 70 or 80 per cent, of water. By 

 green manuring all this carriage is saved, the bulk and 

 manurial properties of the crop are not in any way impaired 

 or reduced, and when the crop is buried in the soil the gases 

 arising from its fermentation and decomposition enrich the 

 soil which arrests them ; and at the same time the gases, by 

 their chemical action, and the vegetable fibre and tissue 

 (which gradually decomposes and becomes humus) mechani- 

 cally prevent the soil binding into a hard, unyielding mass. 



The only expense of green manuring is the seed required 

 for the crop which it is intended to use as a manure. Green 

 manuring is seldom practised in temperate climates, because 

 of the time that would be lost in growing a crop for manure. 

 Not having green manuring to refy on, greater care is taken 

 of farmyard manure, as a means of enriching the land, and 

 to keep it open and porous. This latter object has also been 

 effected by subsoil drainage. 



The Chinese are said to practise green manuring to a great 

 extent, and to grow heavy crops of clover merely to bury as a 

 manure. As the Chinese are considered amongst the best 

 agriculturists in the world, a lesson might be taken from them 

 on this point, as regards a system of agriculture suited to the 

 climate and requirements of Upper India. 



