180 THE COMPLETE FAKMER 



thousand ways without knowing it. This very substance, 

 had ii been useless, must have accumulated in heaps, intoler- 

 ably n )if ome and perpetually pestilential ; but by the bless- 

 ing of Providence, it is every man's interest to remove these 

 otherwise increasing mountains of fUth, and by decomposi- 

 tion, in various ways, in a great measure concealed from us, it 

 gives increase to our fields, and adds to our means of indus- 

 try, and the reward of the husbandman.' 



Those who cultivate the grouud do not always act the 

 provident part supposed by lord Erskine, in the sentence 

 above quoted. On the contrary, farmers too often suffer ma- 

 nure to acci.mulate and waste in heaps, generating effluvia 

 ' intolerably noisome and perpetually pestilential,' without 

 fear of fexer or famine, both of which are courted by such 

 conduct. Not only dung is too often allowed to waste its 

 richness on the tainted air, but straw and other litter is suf- 

 fered to grow mouldy and consume by what is sometimes 

 called the Q;:yrot, both of which might be prevented, or their 

 bad effects obviated, by covering or mixing them with a suita- 

 ble quantity of earth. Besides, dead animals, contents of 

 privnes. the emptyings of sinks, spoiled provisions, the refuse 

 of the dairy, the pantry, and the cellar, are allowed to min- 

 gle their odours in nauseating and deleterious profusion. 

 Sometimes the highway is rendered almost impassable in 

 consequence of a dead horse, sheep, dog, or cat undergoing 

 the process of decomposition in a situation correctly calcu- 

 lated to annoy travelers. Some farmers hang dead lambs, 

 cats, dogs, &c., in the forks of apple-trees, or throw them on 

 hovels or stumps, at some elevation from the ground, to give 

 the pestilential emanations a chance to dirfuse themselves, 

 without coming in contact with the earth, which might con- 

 vert them from poison to men and animals into food for 

 plants. If, however, such animal remains are deposited in 

 a barn-yard or manure heap, they are too often suffered to 

 lie and rot on the surface, offending the senses, and injuring 

 the health of a whole village. Practices of this kind are 

 well reproved by Sir Humphrey Davy, who says, ' Horses, 

 dogs, sheep, deer, and other quadrupeds that have died acci- 

 dentally or of diseases, after their skins are separated, are 

 often suffered to remain, exposed to the air, or immersed in 

 water, till they are destroyed by birds or beasts of prey, or 

 entirely decomposed ; and in this case most of their organ- 

 izable matler is lost from the land on which they lie, and a 



