PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 511 



COMPOST MANURES. 



BY J. E. HOWARD. 



At the annual meeting of the trustees, held at Bridgewater, 

 November 10th, 1852, the following remarks on compost ma- 

 nures, having been read by J. E. Howard, of West Bridgewater, 

 were ordered to be printed with the Transactions of the So- 

 ciety. 



Mr. President, — I beg leave to submit for the consideration 

 of the trustees, a few remarks on the " manufacture of compost 

 manures, and their application to the various soils of this 

 county." Leaving the contest for the prizes proposed, to abler 

 pens than mine, I would merely offer a few hints on a subject 

 upon which the trustees have m,anifested a wish — hitherto not 

 responded to — to provoke discussion. I do this, let me add, 

 in the hope that, should any be suggested worthy of being 

 recalled, they may be turned to profitable account ; and that, 

 on the other hand, should it be otherwise, the attempt with 

 the attending circumstances, may be speedily forgotten. Be- 

 fore proceeding, however, I must be permitted to make a few 

 preliminary observations on another subject. 



It unfortunately happens that errors in practise sometimes 

 spring from a misconstruction of sound, no less than from the 

 adoption of false maxims of conduct. To illustrate this re- 

 mark, I would cite the often repeated aphorism, that " in the 

 vegetable as in the animal kingdom, like produces like." Now 

 this doubtless is true, but not, it is believed, in the sense in 

 which it is sometimes understood. An interpretation is not 

 unfrequently given to this law of reproduction, which neither 

 facts nor sound philosophy seem to warrant. 



Intimately connected with the preservation and happiness 

 of the different orders of beings that inhabit our earth is the 

 continuation of the different varieties of plants which it is 

 adapted to produce. Hence each perfectly developed seed, of 

 every species, is endowed with the power of producing a plant 

 sui generis^ of its own kind, and capable in its turn, of bearing 



