28 THE COMMERCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL 



provision is made to supply the manure in the pit at any time 

 with the requisite amount of moisture, it may not be advisable to 

 put up a roof over the dung-pit. On the other hand, on farms 

 where there is deficiency of straw, so that the moisture of the 

 excrements of our domestic animals is barely absorbed by the 

 litter, the advantage of erecting a roof over the dung-pit will be 

 found very great. 



24. The worst method of making manure is to produce it by 

 animals kept in open yards, since a large proportion of valuable 

 fertilizing matters is wasted in a short time ; and after a lapse of 

 twelve months at least two-thirds of the substance of the manure 

 is wasted, and only one-third, inferior in quality to an equal weight 

 of fresh dung, is left behind. 



23. The most rational plan of keeping manure in heaps ap- 

 pears to me that adopted by Mr. Lawrence, of Cirencester, and 

 described by him at length in Morton's ' Cyclopaedia of Agri- 

 culture,' under the head of ' Manure/ 



2. THE COMMERCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL VALUE 

 OF ARTIFICIAL MANURES. 



[Delivered at Barnstaple, January, 1857.] 



ANY one who has seen the astonishing effects which guano pro- 

 duces when applied to corn crops, or superphosphate when 

 applied to root crops, can doubt no longer the very great import- 

 ance which the introduction of artificial manures has acquired 

 with respect to practical agriculture. It is from the introduction 

 of artificial manures that we have to look forward for still greater 

 success in agricultural improvements. When artificial manures 

 were first brought under the notice of farmers they were offered 

 for sale in a very crude and inefficient state ; and it is really 

 marvellous to see the vast improvements which have taken 

 place in their manufacture. Year after year are improvements 

 introduced by intelligent manufacturers possessed of sufficient 

 capital to carry out the suggestions of scientific chemists in 

 an efficient manner, and scarcely has one improvement met 

 with practical success before another is brought under the notice 

 of practical farmers. It is really surprising that, notwithstand- 

 ing the great improvements which intelligent manufacturers 

 of artificial manures have introduced into their manures, there 

 should be manures of a very low standard still offered in the 

 market, and purchased by practical farmers. I have been 

 thinking a good deal about the causes which would account for 

 the curious anomaly, that, while there are in the manure market 

 artificial manures of the highest degree of fertility manures 



