CITAP. I. ANIMAL MANURES. 17 



in this country the coarse and cheap preparation of it, sold in 

 the bazars under the name of goor, is found a useful ingredient 

 in composts for manuring fruit-trees. 



SEETEE. The refuse from Indigo factories is found, where 

 available, a valuable manure. 



ANIMAL MANURES. 



BULLOCKS'-DUNG. Of all manures available to the Indian 

 gardener there is none so valuable and universally useful as 

 this; whether applied fresh as a surface dressing, or worked 

 in the soil when about two years old, after it has become 

 thoroughly decayed and reduced to a consistency similar to that 

 of moist black snuff. For the successful cultivation of culinary 

 vegetables it is indeed all but indispensable. But from its being 

 so much employed by the natives as a fuel, it is not always 

 easily obtainable. Even those who themselves keep cows or 

 bullocks find some difficulty on that account in preserving it. 

 When permission can be obtained, it may sometimes be pro- 

 cured from the enclosures where the commissariat cattle are 

 stalled. Occasionally also it may be purchased of the goalas at 

 a moderate price. 



STABLE-MANURE. This, which in India bears the appearance 

 of dry rubbish, very different from the valuable manure so much 

 in request in Europe, is still of great service for the kitchen - 

 garden. The best way of using it is, perhaps, to cast it upon 

 the ground when the Cold-season crops are over, and work it 

 in the soil during the hot and rain months. It may be worked 

 also in the same way in the borders, the soil of which is rarely 

 so good as not to be immensely benefited thereby. It is sur- 

 prising, however, what prodigious quantities of this material are 

 lost to all serviceable purposes in India. In Calcutta and the 

 suburbs it is not unusual to see a pile of it laid outside the gate 

 of each compound, every two or three days, for the conservancy 

 carts to carry away, and throw into some hole that requires to 

 be filled up, or even to cast into the river. In the North- West 

 Provinces also it is made away with by the syces during the 

 cold months, who, as soon as evening sets in, light their fires 

 and continue burning it a great part of the night. The dense, 

 suffocating, ammoniacal smell it thereby imparts to a canton- 



c 



