16 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



be most favourable to vegetation when mixed with other excre- 

 ment, and with strav,-, or similar substances, because it occa- 

 i^ions their combination, and contributes to their more perfect 

 decomposition, by which they are converted into the species 

 of manure of which we are treating-; and although we confine 

 that manure to straw, or haulm, and to the dung of horses and 

 oxen, both as that of which it is the most g^enerally composed, 

 and as folding- and nig-ht-soil will be separately considered, it 

 yet includes every other kind of ordure, (a) 



Straw of all kinds, or similar dry veg-etable matter, when 

 used as litter, is well known to form a principal ingredient in 

 the composition of farm-yard manure ; not perhaps so much 

 by the nourishment which it is of itself capable of imparting to 

 the soil, as from the value which it acquires by its absorp- 

 tion of urine, as well as by combining with dung in its differ- 

 ent stages of decomposition, and imparting consistence to the 

 whole mass, which is then carried more regularly through the 

 processes of fermentation and putrefaction, by which it is ren- 

 dered fit for the purpose for which it is wanted. Nothing, in 

 fact, can be better adapted for the mixture than straw ; for it 

 would rot with difficulty and imperfectly but for the dung, 

 vvliich brings an accession of the richest materials to the heap, 

 and there can be no doubt that, when thus combined, it forms 

 the best and the most generally useful of all manures for 

 every kind of land. All the various sorts of straw and haulm 

 answer the purposes of litter, though opinions vary respecting 

 its value for that use ; some contending that rye straw is the 

 best, while others insist, with more apparent reason, that the 



been not inaptly demanded, whether, if these ingredients could be procured 

 cheap, and rendered soluble in water, they might not be so prepared as to 

 bi-'conie valuable for saturating duntr-hills, or for application in its liquid 

 state? — Leicester Report, note, p. 190. Humrfn urine contains a greater 

 variety of constituents than any other species, and differs in comparison 

 according to the state of the body. («) [One hundred parts of the urine of 

 a healthy man are estimated to be equal to 1300 parts of fresh horse-dung, 

 and to 000 parts of fresh cow-d\in<r.] All urine is liable to undersro putre- 

 faction very suddenly ; but that of carnivorous animals more rapidly than 

 that of granivorous animals The pot-ash and pearl-ash of conuuerce are 

 carbonates of putassa of different degrees of purity. — Sir II. Davy, Elem. 

 of Jlgric. Clieiii., p. 2.56. See also the Analysis, by Berzelius, and by TV. 

 Jlenry, J\l. D., F. R. S., Elem. of Exper. Chem.y 10th edit., vol. ii. chap. xiii. 

 Beet. V. 



The white globe turnip not only yields a larger quantity of urine, but its 

 etTrtct as a manure upon any crop is less apparent than that of either the 

 yi'llow Aberdeen or the Swedish. That produced by cut-gras-s is compara- 

 tively weak: but the liquid majiure from the refuse of distilleries, such ;rs 

 grains and dreg, has been found good. — (^iiart. Jour, of Jigric, IS'o. xix. p. 96. 



