14 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



thus prepared, the manure should be spread sparingly upon the 

 land, if used for corn crops, or it is apt to make them run to 

 straw: but upon cold, sour soils, this unfermented dung may- 

 be used in large quantities with considerable advantage. 



Swine''s dung is, by many persons, considered as the rich- 

 est of all animal manure, except night-soil ; while others view 

 it as being of a cold description. It is of a soapy nature, is 

 slow of fermentation, and when laid upon very cold soils, it 

 shoiiW be mixed with horse-dung ; for although its stimulating 

 powers upon vegetation are very great, yet of itself it does not 

 heat sufficiently to destroy the seeds of weeds. Mr. Malcolm, 

 indeed, says that 'he has often seen it applied to land consist- 

 ing of a shallow loam upon a fine gravel, and land of a sandy 

 nature, in which soils it has filled the ground with weeds, par- 

 ticularly the May-weed ; and in a hot season a crop of barley 

 has been entirely burnt up.' The loss of the barley-crop may 

 however be partly attributed to the dryness of the season, and 

 the foulness of the land to the want of good culture. Any 

 ill-managed manure may be full of the seeds of weeds, and 

 therefore they may be sown with it. But it is a futile charge 

 against any species of manure to say that it encourages weeds ; 

 for it is evident that, if the land were clean, the same stimulus 

 wliich acts upon them would be applied, in like manner, to the 

 crop of grain intended to be cultivated. We do not hear such 

 complaints from farmers who drill their corn and effectually 

 hoe the intervals. When, therefore, it is considered that vast 

 quantities of weeds are usually cast into the pigsties, many of 

 them bearing seeds fully ripened, it will be evident that caution 

 is requisite to destroy their vegetative powers before this ma- 

 nure is laid upon arable lands. On this account, nothing can 

 be more proper than to form a dunghill by a mixture from the 

 pigsties and the stable. The well-known property of horse- 

 dung to ferment freely Vv-ill completely effect what is required, 

 and the compost will be found most valuable. The worth of 

 manure from the pigsties will however depend m.uch upon the 

 mode in which it is prepared. If the litter be often renewed, 

 and it be kept dry, either by sloping gutters, or by moans of 

 holes bored in the planking of the floor, then tlie straw will 

 retain but a small quantity of the urine, and will be productive 

 of little otber effect than if it were merely rotten. But if it 

 be allowed to become saturated with the urine, by stopping 

 those drains, and care be taken to preserve the litter in a 

 proper state for decomposition, it will ferment rapidly, lose its 



