ON THE 



COMPOSITION OF FARMYARD MANURE. 



IT is generally admitted that the management of farmyard manure, 

 as carried out in many parts of England, more especially in the 

 western counties, is often attended with much loss in valuable 

 fertilising matters. In a country in which large sums are annually 

 expended by the farming community in the purchase of artificial 

 food and foreign manures, it might naturally be expected that the 

 utmost care would be bestowed on the treatment of home-made 

 dung, and that in its preparation the suggestions of improved 

 practice and modern science would frequently be called into requi- 

 sition by the cultivator of the soil. Experience, however, teaches 

 that this is far from being the case. It is, indeed, a matter of 

 surprise, no less to the agricultural chemist than to the more in- 

 telligent portion of the t agricultural community, that there should 

 exist on the one hand so much ignorance on the first principles 

 involved in the management of farmyard manure, and on the 

 other so much indifference as to the best means of preventing 

 the deterioration of the most important of all fertilizers. For 

 my own part, however, I cannot share the opinions of those zeal- 

 ous and, no doubt, sincere agricultural reformers, who describe 

 the practical farmer as adverse to every new improvement, and 

 turning a deaf ear to the suggestions of modern science. I know 

 well how little of what commonly passes as a law of nature, or 

 a scientific principle, rests on a firm basis, and is derived from 

 the constant recurrence of a number of well-established facts. I 

 am well aware how many so-called improvements are the emana- 

 tions of the heated imagination of empirical theorists, and how 

 few of the suggestions of even eminent scientific men can be 

 practically carried out with economy on a large scale. I there- 



" B2 



