S6 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



injury by an excess of moisture : if, therefore, its removal bo 

 deferred to any distant period, a proportionately greater length 

 of time mu8t necessarily be devoted to its turning and being 

 got in order for the field. Unless over-year muck be used, if 

 the manure be required for turnips, it will be found necessary 

 to lead it from tlie farm-yard as soon after Christmas as the 

 weather and the state of the roads will admit of it; or, if 

 wanted for beans, that should be done much earlier. No 

 period is more advantageous for this work than a frost ; and if 

 much manure is wanted early, it may be led from the yard a 

 second time in the month of February. It should not be for- 

 gotten that the lighter it is laid upon the heap, the more rapid 

 will be the decomposition ; and that it may be retarded by 

 compactness of form and pressure on the top with a heavy 

 coat of soil. This, however, must depend upon the quantity 

 of litter and of cattle, on the extent of the yards, the state oi" 

 the weather, the condition of the manure, and the intention to 

 which it is to be applied, all varying according to circum- 

 stances, for which no precise rule can be laid down, and 

 wiiich must therefore be left to the judgment of the farmer. 

 Yard-dung, made in winter, if trodden by cattle, will not be 

 found to ferment much. It ought, if possible, to be kept 

 neither too wet nor too dry ; if in the former state, it will 

 injure the stock, without forwarding its own decomposition ; 

 and if in the latter, it will become mouldy, or fire-fanged, and 

 lose its most valuable qualities : in order to prepare it in the 

 best manner, it should therefore be preserved in a mean 

 between tbe two extremes. 



Throughout most counties the general plan is, after foddering 

 is over, to carry out the dung from the farm-yard, and to place 

 it in large heaps, in drder to occasion a due fermentation, and to 

 render it quite rotten before it is laid upon the land. There 

 are, however, many circumstances which render practice and 

 opinion at variance on this point, in consequence of which 

 a great portion of the manure is carted directly to the fields, 

 and applied to the intended crop, either fresh, or perhaps after 

 being once turned over. The apprehension that dung loses 

 much of its virtue by evaporation is not entirely unknown or 

 imattended to; but people think difiercntly on the subject. 

 Several farmers maintain that ploughing in the manure as 

 soon as it is laid upon the land is unnecessary, if not injurious; 

 because they say that it absorbs the nif'jhtly dews and other 

 substances from the atniy^^plierc, by wiiich its quality is im- 



