18 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



wholly fed on straw, although the farmer may have a large 

 dunghill, it will be found to be of comparatively little value. 



It has been tjiought that cattle getting wholly straw, or 

 other dry forage, for both food and litter, may consume nearly 

 three-fifths of it us food, and there would still remain a useful 

 mixture of dung and straw for manure. When they are sup- 

 plied, as young or keeping stock, with turnips to keep them 

 merely in condition, the manure will be in good order when 

 they eat about one-half of the straw, and leave the other half 

 as litter. If, again, they are being fattened on turnips, or fed 

 on distiller's wash, grains, or upon other food, which produces 

 their dung with much urine, they would then require to have 

 at least three-fifths, if not a still larger quantity of straw left 

 for litter. These proportions will, in such instances, be gene- 

 rally found to produce manure of a good description ; but when 

 beasts are fatting upon steamed potatoes and oil-cake, or other 

 provender which occasions costiveness, or does not occasion a 

 tree discharge ,of urine, it may sometimes be necessary to 

 moisten the dung-heap, by which means any quantity of straw 

 may be rotted, and, with a comparatively small proportion of 

 dung, may be converted into manure. Mr. Marshall mentions 

 having tried the effects of moisture in some experiments on 

 his own farm upon heaps of dung which had lain until much 

 of it had become mouldy, one of which he watered, bringing 

 the outward and dry parts into the middle of the pile, and 

 drenching it well with the drainage of the yard ; it was then 

 carefully turned over, breaking every lump and mixing all its 

 parts, then finally wetting the surface, and clapping it smooth 

 and close with the back of the shovel to keep in the heat. It 

 began to work on the second or third day, after which the 

 mouldiness disappeared, and it was converted into compara- 

 tively rich, black, and rotten dung ; and other similar trials 

 were equally successful. The utility of that point of manage- 

 ment is, in fact, unquestionable ; the trouble is not worth 

 mentioning ; but were it greater, and that any thing is to be 

 thereby gained in the quality of the dung, that can form no 

 sufficient excuse for its omission, for, if it be of any value, it 

 cannot be too good, and the experience of kitchen gardeners, 

 who are well known to use great care in the preparation of 

 dung, and to profit accordmgly, should operate as a hint to 

 farmers to use similar means. 



There can be no doubt that the haulm of beans and peas 

 produces more nutritive food than straw. When the former 



